


i want trees instead of gravestones

by Elsetetra



Series: hail to the devil within [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Gen, king AU, original king au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsetetra/pseuds/Elsetetra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The foundations of the kingdom had been crumbling ever so slowly since the beginning of the reign of the first king in 150 years, and all hell breaks loose when the pressure has the cracks in the levee breaking. All that results is a fight for a crown forged in blood that involves far more than just the nobles, and it falls on the shoulders of the man who'd once sat at the lowest part of the kingdom's totem pole to keep Rerbum from ruin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an original Kings au - not based on a Mallius or Rooferfeef or other preexisting AU whatsoever. Due to the high volume of death and violent content, any chapters with potential triggers will come with an attached trigger warning and a chapter synopsis attached onto the end in the notes for anyone who feels they'd be triggered but wants to continue reading.
> 
> This chapter contains a content warning for mentions of gutting and hunting animals but there is no graphic content.

Gavin Free strongly considered himself to be at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. It wasn’t his fault – and hell, he didn’t even mind it much, because it generally meant a greater sense of independence (hence the surname he’d adopted for himself) but it was just the way things worked. There was no one in the whole kingdom, from its farthest reaches of the frigid northern mountains to the desert sands that stretched all the way south to the sea, who sat lower on the totem pole than him. Because, put simply, Gavin Free was clanless.

Clans, after all, were power in the kingdom of Rerbum. Matriarchal in nature, they served as family units, but better yet, like fiefdoms: there were five major clans in all the kingdom and each essentially controlled a portion of the kingdom, nearly all equal in the number of cities they ran. Like a mafia, of sorts. With the woman at the head of the household, a man would marry into his wife’s clan and abandon his old one – so it served him best to marry into a clan of significant power, and marriages for political reason seemed to be increasingly popular these days.

And a clan was equivalent to power in the end – your clan protected you and gave you money and land and, in the cases of the larger and richer clans, more political input and power, and to don your family crest proudly was to say “these are the people who’ll come after you if you touch me.” And to be without a clan was just… shameful. To have been cast aside by your own mother or to have committed an act so treasonous you were banished from your own family was disgusting and in society’s eyes, reason for an individual to be outcast, even in special circumstances that didn’t warrant the ignominy. There were a lot of laws keeping a solid schism between the clanless and the noble clanspeople. Most cities didn’t even enforce their own laws protecting the clanless from crime and murder. As a clan was equivalent to power, to be clanless was to be powerless.

It all sounded positively dreadful when you tried to explain it but really, as Gavin would usually insist, it wasn’t that bad. He didn’t feel any reason to be ashamed – his parents had died while he was still near infancy and no clan had come forth to claim him and take him back, so for the majority of his life, he’d lived with the very same nomads that saved him from a terribly premature death before he was even a toddler. And he couldn’t ever remember doing anything but travelling, and he was perfectly alright with that, because it was far better than being tied down as the noble heir to some stuffy higher-up clan, he figured. No use being tied down to one place when there was an entire world to explore, right?

**

“B.”

It’s an unreasonably early hour of the morning – still a solid half hour before daybreak at least – and Gavin was quite deep in a more than enjoyable slumber. But it’s Dan’s voice that can rouse him from sleep quicker than anything.

He sucked in a deep breath through the nose before finally opening his eyes, vision still fuzzy from sleep, but the figure crouched in front of him is clearly Dan, clad in dark clothing and eyes just faintly glowing, and it looks like there’s something clutched tight in one hand. He’s a comforting and familiar constant.

“Hi B.”

Dan smiled as Gavin sat himself up and stretched, joints popping loudly after a sleep on the hard ground like that. He liked being on the ground, when he had the chance, though. Usually better than the backs of wagons and trailers, which, contrary to popular belief, were usually far more infested with insects that the forest floor itself.

“I got breakfast.” He held up then what he’d been hanging on to – two freshly slain quail, both plump and good to keep a man fed for most of a whole day. “You want to get out of here?”

Gavin nodded vigorously – he would never turn down a free breakfast, especially not one with his B, and it’s not like it’s uncommon for individuals to disappear from their travelling groups as quickly as they appeared. Nomads were like one big clan but, more or less, without the perks. One of those missing perks was closeness and familiarity, individuals coming and going as they pleased. So he’s quick to start packing up.

**

Dan is Gavin’s only real friend.

He thinks about that as the other plucks his quail and his fingers are busied with his own. Dan and Gavin are B’s – boys, best friends, brothers, whatever. The point was, neither of them had much of anybody. Gavin was clanless and hasn’t stuck with any particular group of nomads for more than a week tops ever since he left his first pseudo-family at an unconventionally young age, and Dan was an Enderman who tended to prefer loneliness to the company of humans that only reluctantly and resentfully accepted his species as a part of their kingdom.

They’d known each other since Gavin was very young – Dan latched onto the band of itinerants that had taken Gavin in, and while at the time he looked to be about ten or eleven while Gavin was only just turned six, he soon discovered that the other was a fair deal less than human and watched, slowly but surely, as his own physical age seemed to surpass his friend’s. He was always afraid to ask how old he _really_ was, but surely it must have been far greater than Gavin’s.

At first, Dan had taught Gavin everything he knew; from bringing his vernacular skill up to par and giving him a basis of writing to teaching him to make a fire and tell time from the shadows, he’d taken his time to give Gavin everything he’d need to survive. After all, a child from the End got a hell of a lot better education than a child living with umpteenth generation nomads. As time went on and they got closer, the dynamic changed, especially as Gavin grew closer in age to the Enderman with the slower biological clock. They picked up archery together, learned ways to travel without notifying a soul of your presence, and perfected the art of sneaking into parties and libraries and everything in-between. Simply put, the dynamic shifted to something closer than brothers. A vastly more profound bond.

And only to add to that, Gavin didn’t speak to much of anyone else regularly. He was never in the same place for more than a week, but then there was Dan, who like him, travelled consistently. Better yet, Dan knew exactly how to find him; ages ago Gavin was given an Ender Pearl, one Dan had already bound himself to, for the sole purpose of Dan being able to teleport to him. The way the species worked was a little weird, Gavin always thought.

“Did you hear me?”

Gavin was startled from thought and, immediately, grows pretty embarrassed. “Not really.”

Dan laughed, and it’s reassuring that the other doesn’t care. “Give me your bird, I’ll roast it.”

Gavin wasn’t about to complain – it was Dan that had mastered the use of cooking cranes and all sorts of other things. Gavin couldn’t cook for shit, so he gladly handed over the plucked bird.

Quite skillfully, Dan began to gut them – Gavin couldn’t watch, even the stench enough to make him gag. Most nights, he’d steal from travelers on the roads and markets in smaller cities and town to feed himself as to avoid having to take care of once-living prey. Of course, Dan didn’t need to know that. But no way in hell could he pull off something like this.

He watches with interest as Dan puts it all together – he’s already fully familiar with how the other is skilled at spearing meat on the green branches he sends Gavin off to find, and his makeshift setup over the fire they’d built was sturdy and impeccable. He recalled once that Dan had said he could easily eat food raw – another trait defining the difference in their species – but he was so clearly in practice and Gavin couldn’t help but appreciate the care he took with things when it wasn’t strictly necessary.

They spoke for a while as Dan lazily tended to breakfast; Dan shared the latest gossip from around the kingdom – “I heard there’s some unrest over trade between the Jones and Haywood families. Sounds rather nasty, to be honest” – and Gavin shared a few of the newer myths he’d heard. Dan had heard them all, of course; he knew every variation there was to be heard of the religious stories the nomads passed around campfires, but it was nice hearing them out of Gavin. Hearing them in a familiar accent with unusual vocabulary and animated storytelling made them a hell of a lot better.

“So I think we should just spend the day faffin’ about in the forest,” Gavin suggested, changing the topic at last with a stuffed mouth immediately after Dan handed him the cooked bird, and it only earned him a gently little tap in the shin with Dan’s foot.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, B,” he chastised, though it was mostly for the sake of politeness – he’d heard every word just fine. “That’s fine. I was thinking of heading home north. You should come.”

Gavin blinked. He’d never been invited back to the north with Dan before.

The only known End Portal in the entirety of the kingdom – probably the entirety of the world, in fact, judging by the fact that Dan had never left Rerbum before – resided in a northern stronghold. One of the larger strongholds, but not the largest, not where the Lord of the Jones family lived. Which was a shame, because Gavin had always wanted to meet a noble, and he was certain Dan could have snuck him in any day. But because of the portal’s location, the Endermen tended to regard the north as home in this plane of existence, the only home a species of solitary nomads could really claim as their own. And Gavin had never been that far north, up into the frigid mountains where the bloodthirsty warriors of the region’s respective clan had staked their claim, but he’d always wanted to go. And when Dan offered, he wasn’t about to say no, especially not if it meant perhaps getting to see the land where Dan came from.

“That would be top.”

“You can’t come to the End,” Dan elaborated a moment later, effectively snuffing out that dream. “No humans allowed – that’s the general rule. And while they might leave you be because of the Pearl, I’m not about to risk it.”

“Besides, big scary dragon and what not, right?” Gavin decided a long time ago he was excellent and masking disappointment with jokes. Dan laughed, so it must have worked.

“The dragon doesn’t really bother the people. It’s more of a deific thing – worshipped figure of religion and all that.”

Gavin was quiet for a moment. “Do you believe it’s really a god?”

“No.” Dan’s answer was short and simple and he rattled it off without missing a beat. “Lots of people believed the First King was a god for his magic – look at the wasteland of the Ruined Kingdom. It takes a lot of power for that. And lots of people believe the current king may very well be a god as well. Or the same god.”

That much was true; the First King was well known for his magic, having laid waste to the kingdom to the east during his reign two and a half centuries prior. All that remained there now was the ruins of cities and towns rotted by age, and the few survivors left – a cursed myriad of peoples, slow and mindless zombies hungry for flesh and wise skeletons who stuck to shadows lest their bones bleach and brittle in the sun till they crumbled to nothing but dust. It was for his skill in sorcery that he was labelled a god by some, but the majority of religions these days didn’t follow the same system of beliefs. Some nomads still did rather than converting to the diluted version of the religion of the End that had come to them some two hundred years prior when the schism between the worlds was broken – but growing up, Gavin never believed it.

“The point is,” Dan continued, “I don’t think it’s a deity at all. Fearsome beast with similar genes to mine? Yeah, and the idea that I’ve got a dragon for a distant cousin is pretty empowering. But a god? Hell no.”

Gavin grinned at that comment – he forgot sometimes that Dan was something of a dragon. Obviously he wasn’t a _full_ dragon, but to share the same blood as one was still pretty spectacular. Even more so for Gavin at times; how many people could say, “Yeah, my best friend is a dragon”?

“Anyways.” Dan tore off the leg of his bird, small as it was, with his other hand. “Neither of us really have much of anything to do, do we? It would be nice. We don’t see each other anymore.”

“Yeah – yeah, alright, we’ll head out today. North could get a little chilly though, couldn’t it? And snowy. Is sleeping in the open really a good idea?”

“We’ll just time it right. Either get to the cities by nightfall or be in the mountains by then. There are more than enough caves to camp in.” Dan reached over with his foot and nudged Gavin’s. “It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah it will,” Gavin replied, smile widening. “I’m so excited, we haven’t travelled together in _ages_.”

Actually, he thought, they hadn’t travelled together since younger days with nomads – ever since Gavin split off from his adoptive itinerants, he and Dan hadn’t _actually_ spend any period of time travelling together, significant or not. Gavin sought to rectify that.

**

“B, watch this.”

Gavin was always ever so eager to showing off his talent, and Dan, sat on a branch some ten feet off the ground, couldn’t help a fond smile at it. Bowstring pulled back and taut, Gavin stood, loose and focused and wholly determined, and sounding distracted as he spoke. “I’m going to hit that apple.”

Dan frowned – there weren’t a lot of apple trees out here in the dense forest. Those existed more commonly a little more to the north. Twisting in the general direction Gavin was pointed, hands tight on the branch beneath him to keep him in place, he leaned out to see what he was talking about. And it caught his eye fairly immediately, but that he knew it was only because of the way his eyes worked; Gavin was straining to see the red speck of an apple hanging low on a branch some hundred yards away, and Dan frowned.

“Are you sure you can hit that?”

“Shh.” Slowly, focused, Gavin checked his aim one last time, took a deep breath to steel himself, and fired. Dan strained his ears, and could hear the faint sound of an arrow piercing fruit. He grinned outright.

“Oh, B, _wonderful_. Damn, you’ve been practicing, haven’t you?”

Gavin’s stern focus melted away immediately – he’d been relying on Dan to reveal whether or not he got it, and from the sound of it, he did, and he matched the other’s wide smile.

“I’ve been doing a lot of long-range – I can hit any target maybe a hundred meters away most days, if I can see it well enough.” The two of them were usually about par when it came to archery skill, but even still, Gavin prided himself on being able to surprise Dan.

“In that case I think you can do the rest of the hunting for the trip,” Dan remarked, poising himself for the drop and slipping off the branch with a loud thump upon impact. He landed on both feet, one hand brushing the ground for balance, but it still took a moment to steady himself before he could turn and grab his own bow from its place leaned up against the trunk.

Gavin gave an indignant squawk. “You’re much better at it,” he rebutted, but Dan only shook his head.

“Nah – you’re capable, B, don’t sell yourself short. I’ll still skin them and gut them and everything, I promise.”

The last bit had Gavin reconsidering the offer – he ought to pull his own weight anyways, but he didn’t really think Dan cared either which way about taking care of him. Even so, he relented.

“Alright.” Slinging his bow over his shoulder with the wire across his chest, Gavin began to head for where he’d shot his arrow to the north, pausing only till Dan followed. There was a town just northeast of the capital, straight in their path, with friends of Dan’s who would gladly host a clanless vagabond and an Enderman, both without money and nearly equally shunned within cities (the only difference was that it was illegal to outright discriminate against Dan’s people – any clanless individual generally had fuck-all for rights and privileges.) They wanted to reach the town after nightfall; with only a few hours’ worth of walking at noon, they decided it was in their best interest to take it slow and drag it out.

It took a minute to reach the impaled apple, but when he did, Gavin pulled the arrow from it in one swift tug and tossed it to Dan, who barely caught it without dropping the thing. “Here you are.”

“B, I don’t want your dirty arrow apple.” Dan frowned. “Who knows what’s touched it out here?”

Gavin laughed, returning the arrow to the quiver slung across his back. “Throw it down if you don’t want it, you wouldn’t be hurting my feelings.”

“If you say so.” Shrugging, he dropped it, following after as Gavin began to walk.

After a few minutes of silence, though not exactly uncomfortable, Gavin thought he’d far rather have the sound of small talk and Dan’s voice than crunching leaves. “Have you ever been to this part of the forest?”

Dan shook his head. “No. Too close to the city.” While for the most part he was fine passing through the smaller cities, larger ones always made him more nervous. He figured it was a bit of a ridiculous insecurity, but when the majority of people in the kingdom had lighter hair and clothing and eyes _without_ a glow that intensified with emotion and darkness, a large crowd of people like that made you feel just that much more out of place. So he liked to stick to places with far less dense population lest something happen; after all, while he could certainly hold his own, laws weren’t exactly stopping anyone from doing anything. They just set out a set of consequences that, depending on whether or not the reigning clan should choose to take pity, may or may not be dealt out.

Gavin gave a small nod of understanding. He knew exactly what it was like – he himself barely skated by with his pseudonym of a clan name. Only recently had any laws protecting him from murder or violence or other sorts of crimes been instated by the king – who, since the beginning of his reign a decade prior, had proved himself to be one of the best in history. Regardless of the fact that there had only been four prior.

“We don’t have to get too close, B,” he replied, tossing out the nickname in the hopes of putting him at ease. It didn’t seem to work too well.

“I know.” Dan hunched his shoulders till his nose was buried in his scarf, and Gavin cast a glance back to see it, frowning.

“Here – let’s start veering northeast-ish, then.”

The Enderman behind him raised his head a bit. “The town’s nearly due north of here.”

“But if we keep going we’ll be right up on the city wall in no time, won’t we? Lots of guards. How skeevy do you think a couple of wandering blokes like us will look? I, for one, am not getting out of that one – they might let _you_ go, but we’re so close to the capital everyone will know all the clans and I won’t be able to pull my ‘Free’ rubbish. I’ll get in trouble for being suspicious _and_ a liar.”

Dan couldn’t help but laugh. “Whatever, B, we won’t get in trouble. No one here’s so spiteful they’d throw someone in jail just for bein’ clanless. We’re too far east for that.”

“Let’s go further east.” Gavin was with Dan on the whole ‘avoiding cities’ thing, anyways, and he didn’t want the other to get so wary about location. “Come on, there’s a river just a little northeast of here anyways, I think – I’ll race you. Whoever crosses it first wins.”

Dan was a little wary about that; water was seldom something he went around, but more often than not, there was a safe way across _somewhere_ , even if he had to find a bridge or fell a tree for it.

“Fine. Deal.”

Gavin grinned brightly, and Dan figured it was probably well worth the risk to get him like that.

“Tippity toppers – go!” Gavin took off immediately, with little warning, and wound up getting quite the gain on Dan. Not that he minded – he was a hell of a lot faster than the other anyways, and he could very likely use a head start. So he resituated his bow, and bolted.

**

Gavin realized he was lost about five minutes later.

He’d never been to this part on his own, never quite paid attention to anything, and he could only faintly hear the sound of a running river. But try as he may, it was just too hard to pinpoint its direction.

He wouldn’t panic; Dan was probably there already and if he didn’t turn up within ten or so minutes, Dan would just teleport to him and hunt him down. That was usually how it worked, so he just kept walking. And quite suddenly, he could see a road through the trees.

Gavin squinted at it – he didn’t remember there being a road anywhere to the east of their previous path, and slowly he began to realize how off he had been. Slowly, he made his way towards it, careful lest there be someone. He wasn’t ready to be noticed quite yet.

It was cobbled, he noticed fairly immediately; all the major highways leading directly from one major city to the next were cobbled, ever since it was decided fifty years back that the higher-class travelers were sick of travelling through mud and dirt. All Gavin thought it had accomplished, really, was making all their carriage rides bumpier. There was a fairly thick line of trees lining either side of it. Some roads had thinner foliage along where it had parted the forest, like a dull knife pressing into bread and pushing the edges in, but this was fairly straight forward and cut firmly through the trees like a sharp blade instead. It made for a lot easier hiding, and Gavin pulled himself up into one of the trees.

He’d be safe here while he waited – either Dan would show up or the higher vantage point some twenty feet off the ground would help him get a better feel for things. For a while, he just watched, trying to do exactly that – there was a town about a quarter of a mile in the distance. Actually, it wasn’t even so much of a town as a smaller city, and while Gavin usually wouldn’t have many qualms about travelling through one that size, he figured that it was still just a little too big for Dan’s tastes. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Enderman avoided teleporting to him altogether this close to the city, what with his ability to see roughly where Gavin was whenever he attempted to teleport, so his best bet would be to scan it all out and find his way back himself.

Things were quiet for a while longer till, faintly, Gavin heard the sound of hooves on the cobblestone ground. He tensed – he didn’t need anyone coming by and spotting him now, or scaring Dan away, or whatever, and by instinct, he reached for his bow, hand resting there just in case.

As the horse began to come into view, he squinted to get a better look at it – it was clearly the horse of a higher-class individual, what with its dyed black leather saddle and the fine-looking cargo bags and the silk banners along the side with some family crest he didn’t recognize. A western clan, probably. The point was, they were clearly loaded, and Gavin was not, and so long as he was on his own – especially during lunch, and especially without Dan – it couldn’t hurt to rectify the whole “gubbinless” circumstance of his. And besides, even though they were likely going to be put up for free, it didn’t hurt to be able to give something back to the gracious hosts. So some food, and some money, and that would be it – but in order to rob the brunette clansman trotting along on his caramel-colored horse, Gavin would need to incapacitate him.

Working quickly, he removed his bow fully from his place slung across his back and was quick to draw an arrow, careful to stay steady on his branch all the while. The rider was getting close now, so he’d have no time to dawdle; Gavin drew the arrow back, bringing everything up into position, but there was little time to focus when he was right there and Gavin did his best to aim for the man’s shoulder. Yeah, the shoulder would work – shouldn’t kill him, but might even knock him off his horse and deliver a hearty blow. With luck he wouldn’t catch sight of Gavin, too busy with his own injuries, and the thief could slip off. Better yet, they were so close to a town that the man would get there in no time and Gavin could keep murder off of his list of sins, and with a clear conscience, he fired.

And missed.

The arrow just grazed the shoulder, slicing a neat cut into the fabric as it whizzed past before lodging itself in the roots of a tree, and the man tugged hard on the reigns and brought his horse to a rough and abrupt stop. And quickly, he turned around, gaze hard and cold as he met Gavin’s eyes, and the archer’s stomach dropped.

He’d been seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification-
> 
> Rerbum is the name of the kingdom; it's a combination of the latin words for "Achievement" and "City" - ever the cliche, I know.
> 
> There's no legitimate Danvin (sorry if that's what you came here for) but there's a pretty ambiguous relationship between them and it outright borders on romantic sometimes. However, due to the general genre of the story on a whole, it will remain, for all intents and purposes, pretty much platonic.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan must be worried sick.
> 
> Gavin was feeling pretty sick to his stomach, too, even though the pain had subsided a good deal overnight. Mostly because he’d just left his best friend all alone in the woods while he went ahead and got his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning there's a lot of accidental danvin at the end of this chapter  
> i never meant for it to get this far  
> (still ambiguous and only vaguely implied but only barely so at this point)
> 
> trigger warning for this chapter - there's some heavy-ish descriptions of violence and a lot of talk about blood and wounds later on that could, potentially, be an issue for some; anyone who wants to remain involved in the story without encountering said triggers can find a chapter synopsis at the end.

Gavin regretted separating himself from Dan. He regretted not turning around when he saw the road once he knew he was too close to the city for Dan to follow. He regretted climbing up into that tree, and he regretted firing that arrow, and most of all, he regretted missing. Because now, his target was wasting no time whipping a knife from his belt and hurling it hard at Gavin.

It struck him right in the left shoulder; the man was a good aim, and it dug deep, pain blossoming as blood welled to the surface slowly and surely, and he buckled, losing his balance and slipping off of the tree. The twenty-foot drop to the hard ground was an unpleasant one, but thankfully he’d fallen to the right, the majority of his weight having been on that side in his stance, and he’d been able to brace himself and do a little half-roll. He didn’t hear anything crack, so it had to be at least somewhat effective in keeping him relatively uninjured.

The man on the horse wasted no time coming after him – before Gavin knew it, there was a sharp pain in his stomach as the other’s foot collided with him, and soon he was reaching down and Gavin was up on his feet, the front of his shirt tight in a stranger’s fist and his back colliding hard with the rough bark of a tree, and now there was aching in all sides but the front. The man was in his face, towering over him, voice low and cold and calculating and very clearly affronted.

“What clan are you from?” He growled, straightforward and to the point after giving Gavin a quick once-over, presumably in search of a crest.

“The—the Free clan,” he managed. He didn’t look like central city folk, so very likely he wouldn’t be able to tell it was fake.

“ _Bullshit_.” He pressed Gavin harder into the tree trunk and earned a pained wheeze out of him. “There are no Frees. _What clan are you from?_ ”

Gavin whimpered – anything to get out of the crushing and winding force against his chest, and nothing like the truth to pull it off, right?

“I’m clanless,” he conceded, nothing short of breathless. “I’m sorry.”

The man grimaced before throwing him to the ground. “You had better be.” He drew his sword before continuing on, rolling Gavin to the side with his foot and planting that boot firmly on his chest. “Do you know what the punishment for attempted assassination of a Lord is?”

“I wasn’t trying to assassinate you,” Gavin insisted, just a little too quickly, but the boot came down harder on his chest for it.

“Bull. Did Jones send you? Still bent out of shape over the trade conflicts?”

“ _Honest_. I was—I was going to rob you, I swear.”

“That’s not a hell of a lot better. You likely would have killed me anyways; I should execute you right here. Punishment of death for attempted assassination.”

“Haywood!”

The shout of someone in the distance coming in rapidly from the south got both Gavin and his attacker’s attention, the man with his boot on the archer’s chest twisting to scowl at the quickly incoming horse and its rider. He swore under his breath, cursing himself for not hearing the beat of the hooves earlier, too caught up in his vendetta to notice.

“Let him go, Ryan.” The other man – clearly younger, a tad bit tanner, and wearing mostly greys and brighter shades of red as opposed to the blacks and dark crimsons of the one with his boot in Gavin’s chest – slipped off his chocolate-colored horse and adopted the most threatening posture he could as he approached the other slowly. Ryan, so he was called, only laughed.

“Why should I? _He_ —”

“I don’t care,” the other cut in, and Ryan snapped his jaw shut tight, scowling. “You can’t just attack people on the highway.”

“Tell that to—”

“I don’t care! You’re lucky I don’t tell Geoff. Get out of here.”

There was a beat of hesitation on Ryan’s part. Getting tattled on to the king wasn’t an appealing situation, especially when you were already in a bit of trouble for abusing your powers.

“Now.”

At last, he complied, removing his boot from Gavin’s chest. The archer sucked in the deepest breath he could manage, beyond relieved to have his breathing back, but at the last minute Ryan delivered another sharp kick to his side.

“ _Now_!” The sound of a sword being half-drawn could be heard, clearly a threat, and Ryan only returned his to his sheath.

“I’m going!” He insisted, stomping back to his horse. Gavin caught sight of him mounting it, muttering something to the effect of _‘damn Narvaez’_ under his breath and forcefully urging his horse forward. The man sighed.

“Shit. Sorry for him. He knows he’s not supposed to abuse his power, but he… can get aggressive.” The man kneeled down, helping Gavin into a sitting position. The knife in his shoulder had fallen out ages ago, and now his left side was nothing but a blood-soaked mess. The other grimaced. “He’s not usually this bad. _Shit_ , he did a number on you.”

“Yeah, I, uh—” Gavin hesitated. Actually, it might be better to refrain from mentioning the fact that he, apparently, just tried to rob the Lord of one of the most infamously dangerous clans in the kingdom. “He did.”

“I’m Lord Narvaez,” the man continued, getting Gavin up to his feet. “But seriously, call me Ray. I don’t care about any of that formal bullshit, I’m actually a really laid-back guy. Usually. I’m gonna take you into town, okay? Get you patched up. It’s one of mine anyways, they like me there.”

It became obvious fairly quickly that Gavin wasn’t going to be walking on his own – Ray supported him instead, keeping to his right side as he walked him back to his horse. Getting him on was the tricky part; with care (though he wound up hurting Gavin just a bit in the process anyways, earning a pained swear or three,) he helped the other onto the animal, sliding on behind him a moment later.

“Just don’t move around a ton and we’ll be fine,” he warned, just before taking off.

**

_Dan must be worried sick._

Gavin was feeling pretty sick to his stomach, too, even though the pain had subsided a good deal overnight. Mostly because he’d just left his best friend all alone in the woods while he went ahead and got his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

It wasn’t like Dan couldn’t take care of himself – that wasn’t the issue, it would never be the issue with someone like him. He was known for his strength and his superb senses and, of course you can’t forget, his outstanding ability to teleport anywhere he could see. That was pretty cool, too. But no, Gavin was outright guilty about worrying him. Because Dan, inevitably, would worry something fierce, especially considering getting into the city wasn’t going to be a terribly viable option for him and he had little way to check on his B. Not such a big one.

Gavin had arrived in the city just past noon the day before; it had been about 20 hours since then, and for the most part he’d only slept like a rock while some doctor stitched him up at the inn. Gavin had been unconscious for about 19 hours, but all he’d been able to do for the past solitary sleepless hour was worry about Dan.

Ray, as it turned out, was a pretty laid-back guy; for someone who’d just witnessed an acquaintance prepare to kill a total stranger, he’d been pretty collected while getting some medical attention to that total stranger.

An abrupt knock startled Gavin out of his worried thoughts, followed by an opening door – and speak of the devil, there was Ray, carrying a bowl of something steaming in one hand.

“Hey.” He held the bowl up. “Mushroom stew.”

The mention of it had Gavin’s stomach rumbling – city food was always so much nicer than campfire food, even if Dan did cook the best quails. Slowly and carefully and honestly rather painstakingly, Gavin sat up.

“How’re you doing?” Ray asked, setting the bowl on the table beside Gavin’s bed and pulling up a chair. His clothing was different – there was no armor this time, and the cape he’d donned was gone, and he looked even more laid-back.

“Good. Less hurting in the general…” He gestured all over. “Everywhere.”

That had Ray laughing. “Good – seriously, you know how to pick a fight. What the hell did you even _do_?”

Gavin was about to shrug, but rather, thought better of it. “Went to shoot some prey. I missed and it almost hit him and he accused me of an assassination attempt.” Not too far from the truth, if you were to consider Ryan his prey. That had his stomach sinking, however, so he just reached for the bowl of soup, making a pained little noise when the bruising in his right arm kept that from happening. Ray handed it to him, clucking his tongue.

“He’s pretty edgy these days – some shit with Michael. He’s not usually like that. Don’t think too bad of him for it.”

Honestly, Gavin couldn’t – he was the one who’d tried to rob Ryan, after all.

“So I noticed your bow,” Ray said suddenly. “Back on the roadside, I mean. It was… a little broken. Snapped in half, actually.”

Gavin’s face dropped, making a sad little noise – Dan had made that bow for him. God _damn_ , he was just awful today.

Ray frowned, too, out of sympathy. “I mean, I can try and get it repaired – shouldn’t be too hard, I know someone.”

Gavin shook his head. “I’ll just take it.” When he saw Dan again, he could ask him.

“It’s a pretty nice thing,” Ray continued. “You’re an archer, then?”

This time, Gavin nodded.

“Okay, perfect, because I actually need one more archer for the upcoming Tourney and, I mean, if you wanted to pay me back for all this hospitality I’m dishing out from the cockles of my heart…”

Gavin frowned. “Tourney?”

That caught Ray off guard. “Shit – were you raised in a barn or something? Or kept in some high tower and secluded from society like a prized princess?”

_That first part isn’t too far off_ , Gavin wanted to say. He refrained.

“You know,” the Lord continued. “The Tournament? At the castle? With all the Lords?”

“The games? With the archery and the jousting and all that?”

“Yeah, whatever you wanna call it. Have you seriously never been?”

Gavin tried to shrug, but coupled with his wince of pain, it just looked pretty stupid. “Nah. We’re, uh… a small clan.” _Shit. Don’t talk about your clan, stupid, he’ll ask, and then he’ll **know**._

“Well, now’s as good a time as ever, you know? I usually take first in archery but Haywood’s had it the past few years. Ever since they’ve had the influx of money to start coming in and stealing all our good archers he’s been leaving me fuck-all.” Ray sounded a little bitter over it, but not viciously so.

“I need one more,” Ray continued, elaborating. “My team’s not complete and I was hoping to just pick one up on the way and you’re the man for the job, I guess.”

“You’d have me arch for you? How do you know I’m any good?”

Ray shrugged. “I don’t. But my team has to be complete at the start of next week and you’re pretty much my last chance, honestly – you’re probably better than half the deadbeats you ordinarily pick up off the street.”

Gavin swallowed hard – _‘deadbeats you pick up off the streets’_ was more than likely code for _‘uneducated clanless skeevs.’_ That was how everyone saw people like him, anyways, regardless of how much he knew or how far his talent had gotten him. “Yeah, I… I think I’m half decent.”

Ray smiled at that – it was a genuine one, not just a grin amused at Gavin’s misfortune or stupidity (something he was all too used to) and Gavin wondered what he did.

“Love the humility, man. I’m just really hoping you’re better than you make yourself out to be.” He stood. “Do you need any help with that?”

Gavin shook his head, just prodding at the steaming hot stew with the spoon he’d been given. It would have to cool, but he’d be fine.

“Good. But hold on, you’re… _Gavin_ , correct? You were a little out of it when you gave me your name.”

Gavin nodded. "Yeah – uh. Yeah." Briefly he considered completing it - _'I'm Gavin Free,'_ he could have said, but that might not have ended so well. As he recalled, you needed a clan to complete in a Tourney, and there was no way a Lord would be so easily fooled by his fake surname.

You see, he might not have known too much about the whole affair - avoidance of cities and human interaction and all that - but he had something of an idea of how it worked. If he recalled correctly, clan leaders hired athletes to compete for them on teams. But that was about the extent of it.

"Look, I've been meaning to ask you - what's with the accent?" Ray adopted a puzzled sort of expression, and for a moment it seemed as though he was contemplating sitting back down again, but thought better of it in the end.

Gavin swallowed hard, startled by the question; he forgot, sometimes, that he didn't speak the way everone else did. To him, it was the inhabitants of the kingdom that sounded foreign; nomads had spoken with a subtler version of the accent ever since the Endermen had begun to merge with Rerbum and, more specifically, the nomad groups they often travelled with, but Gavin had a full on End accent. It came from spending the majority of his greatly impressionable childhood with Dan, he decided.

"I, uh – I’m from the North, kind of. Spent a lot of time around the portal." It sounded like a weak excuse, even to his ears - _especially_ to his ears - and Ray clearly didn't buy it completely.

"…Huh. So your clan’s from there, then? You don’t look like a northerner – I’d have pinned your for more western.”

It took him a moment to develop a viable answer, and he swore at himself internally – no way Ray wasn’t suspicious.

“My clan isn’t. I was sent to learn with some members of a clan we’re close with… met my best friend there. Good bloke.” Hey, that wasn’t too far off. Maybe he should stick to warping his own story – it would certain keep the reaction time down. And make lying a hell of a lot easier.

“Ahh – some clans do that, I’ve noticed. The east seems to be a more popular destination, though; jacks of all trades, you know.”

And the masters of none – Gavin had heard the phrase tossed about in relation to the large eastern cities more than enough times. They were an economic center for it, though; anyone who wanted to make a living in anything came here because any industry you could possibly imagine thrived here. Unlike most regions and clans, they didn’t specialize in one particular economic monopoly.

“Anyways. I’m gonna go, if that’s alright? All I’ve been doing is business and travelling and I could really use a break – we’ll probably get on the road again within the week. When your shoulder’s healed a little.” He seemed more than eager to get out of there, honestly, and Gavin couldn’t blame him.

“Yeah, that’s fine, can’t imagine you’d wanna be cooped up in here with me.”

Ray laughed, half-heartedly, and shook his head. “Nah, I don’t really mind it, honestly, I have just got to get out. I’ve dealt with way too many people this week.”

Gavin nodded in understanding – lord only knew that entering the Tourney was only going to put him into far more social situations than he knew how to handle.

Returning the nod – presumably as a gesture of goodbye – Ray slipped out the door and Gavin sat in silence.

After he’d resolved to eat he had the stew gone within a few short minutes – he was starving, and even if mushrooms weren’t necessarily his favorite thing in the world, it was probably some of the better food he’d had in weeks. Definitely up there with Dan’s.

It was eerily quiet in the room without the presence of another human – he’d been asleep the majority of the time, or half-asleep, the hour he’d spent waking not doing a lot for him outside of allowing that dull ache in his shoulder to worsen; he hurt properly now that he was fully conscious, and honestly, he definitely understood what was so appealing about sleeping for those 19 or so hours. Forcing himself to sit up properly, he outright groaned at the pain, letting the blankets fall off.

He was shirtless, he noticed fairly immediately, but he could see his shirts folded up on the chair in the corner of the room. It might be nicer to wear the undershirt when he slept, he decided; the bedding here was nicer than he’d ever had the privilege to sleep in but the blankets were still rough against his flesh and he’d have far preferred to have it on. So he forced himself to stand – not a terribly easy feat. It was significantly easier, he decided, considering it was only his upper body with damage and wounds, but his shoulder still couldn’t quite be moved and his ribs hurt like a bitch any time he pulled at the contusions whatsoever. He managed, though, grabbing the fresh shirt – it wasn’t actually his, evidently, the other one likely too blood-soaked to be handed back – from beneath his green overcoat which, upon further inspection, had only been bloodied on the inside. Which was definitely a nice consolation prize. He liked that coat.

It took an age and a half to slip back into the tunic, his left arm unable to cooperate and lift itself and his ribs aching too much to do anything that required any significant range of muscle movement. But he managed, eventually, wrestling into it with care and calculation and even managing to keep the bandages tightly wrapped around his shoulder. They were there, no doubt, to absorb the blood and keep the wound tightly pressed together, giving it a better chance to heal. The medics nearer the capital were always the best, and as he recalled, they were fairly near to the biggest city in all of Rerbum.

The capital was, of course, centered around the castle, a tall, stony, and positively gorgeous thing; he’d only seen paintings of it or seen it from a distance while climbing a tree in the forest a few miles off to get a sense of direction. But everything he’d seen of it was breathtaking and Gavin, ever the seeker of breathtaking sights, longed to roam the halls of it. But of course, he’d never get away with something like that. Lowly clanless folks didn’t get to stand within twenty feet of the palace gates let alone come anywhere near being inside it.

As Gavin collapsed back in bed, he felt his whole form sag in relief against the mattress – exhaustion, physical and emotional, still hadn’t faded, even with his near overload of sleep. And despite all that he’d gotten, sleeping some more didn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore, and he sunk back into the bed.

Now that he was awake and conscious and, worse yet, had been relatively active, his mind found trouble getting comfortable with the thought of again; it was cold in the room and the bed wasn’t necessarily the most comfortable thing in the world and honestly he had a little too much on his mind – Dan and his complacency with being a part of the Tourney and having to see Lord Haywood again and the fear he’d be executed when everyone found out he’d _lied_ about his clan status to a noble. Really, he’d just been digging himself a deeper and deeper hole with every passing moment. Slipping in and out of consciousness, for the most part Gavin found it impossible to properly drop into sleep rather than sit on the cusp between waking and resting. But finally, after ages of just lying there and willing his mind to rest, he slipped into something of a light slumber.

**

For the second time in the past few days, it was Dan who took it upon himself to wake Gavin.

“B?”

The voice roused him from sleep – he wasn’t deep in it, and probably could have been awoken by anything, but Dan was definitely well suited to do the job no matter what. His eyes fluttered open – sluggishly and with a certain reluctance – and shifted to see Dan crouching to his left, this time at his bedside. At seeing Gavin conscious and as well as he could get, the worried expression melted away almost completely, turning into a relieved smile.

“Where have you _been_?”

“Here,” Gavin answered, the reply weak. “Where have _you_ been?”

“Waiting. Looking for you, mostly; I mean, I had a good idea of where you were but I couldn’t pin you down. You aren’t wearing your pearl.”

One of Gavin’s hands flew instinctively to his chest, feeling for the sphere roughly an inch in diameter that he kept tightly bound on a leather cord. It was missing, and immediately he made an attempt to sit bolt upright. It was a horrible mistake and only resulted in him sputtering out in pain, and one of Dan’s hands moved to rest gently on his chest and ease him back down.

“Easy, B.” His voice was thick with concern. “Don’t worry.”

From his pocket Dan produced the object in question – it was still intact, though the part of the cord that went around his neck had broken.

“It was in the grass out about a half a mile away from the city.”

Gavin swallowed hard – no doubt it had gotten snapped in the fall, probably, or the fight with Lord Haywood. Probably for the better, because he’d never hear the end of the questions if those who’d treated him had found it on his body.

Dan placed the necklace gently in his hands. “I’m glad I found it – helped me find _you_. I was worried sick, you know.”

“I know.” Gavin’s voice was solemn and resigned; he knew he’d worried Dan, and he felt awful for it. This was all his fault – if he hadn’t suggested that stupid race to take the other’s mind off things then they never would have gotten lost or separated. He wouldn’t be lying in a near-stranger’s family home with a wound in his shoulder and a bruise in his ribs.

“How did you find me?” Without the Pearl on his person, Dan couldn’t have teleported straight into the room.

“It was bound to you well enough. Took an age and a half, but once I got ahold of the thing that helped a lot.” He frowned then, taking only a moment to resolve to address the pressing question. “What happened to you?”

Gavin groaned – not a pained one, but frustrated. He didn’t want to have to bring this up with Dan, he didn’t want to tell him he’d tried to rob some bloke on the road, and he let his head loll back against the piss-poor excuse for a pillow in defeat, staring up at the ceiling.

“Got in a fight,” he said weakly, and when he could feel Dan’s disapproving gaze on him, he swallowed hard, pressed to continue. “I, uh—I started it, it was my fault, B. He thought I was an assassin and I think he was gonna kill me.”

Dan’s stomach sank. “Why do you do this stuff?”

Gavin, of course, only felt worse about that; he hated worrying Dan, but even worse, he hated hearing the disappointment in Dan’s voice when he found out about the less than morally right behavior Gavin upheld. He couldn’t bring himself to answer, only grimacing and sinking his head back farther in the pillow with his eyes squeezed shut. He heard Dan stand.

“I’m gonna stay here for a bit,” the Enderman said quietly, rounding the other side of the bed, and Gavin felt it sink under his weight. He cracked an eye open to see the other as Dan laid back beside him, his own arm pressed gently against Gavin’s right uninjured one. Gavin wasn’t about to protest – in fact, he only pressed closer.

“How long is a bit?”

“Till someone turns up,” Dan replied. Gavin knew what the response of anyone who caught him would probably be – and it might be too hard to upkeep his image as a respected clansmen if they knew he was hanging around Endermen.

“Hopefully ‘a bit’ lasts a really long time, then.” He still felt like shit for all of this – he’d ruined their plans and he’d worried Dan and he’d left him all alone for a whole day and basically, it was one of those times where he was quite convinced he couldn’t do anything right. Dan didn’t seem mad, though, just smiled fondly over at him, sprawled out as much as he could be when sharing the small bed with the gangly human.

It was quiet for a long while. Dan, Gavin had noted a long time ago, was much like a large space heater; the dragon in his blood kept him warm, far higher than any human. It made cold winter nights far easier, but because of it, Dan tended to avoid anywhere south of the capital in the summer months. But the point was, Gavin was finding it increasingly easier to doze off between constant physical exhaustion and the newfound heat.

Without warning, however, Dan spoke up, startling Gavin out of his half-asleep state. “What do you plan on doing after this?”

Gavin knew exactly what he was asking – he wanted to know if they were still going north, if Gavin’s mistake had ruined their plans, and now he just felt outright terrible for agreeing to Ray’s proposition.

“Well,” he began slowly, almost drawing it out. “I was going to go to the capital for the Tourney.”

“Oh.” There was no hiding the disappointment in Dan’s voice, and Gavin swore at himself internally.

“I still want to go north, though,” Gavin continued. “I really do. Can we still do it after?”

“Of course.” Dan’s fingers twitched out, bumping and brushing against the other’s in a wordless little reassurance, and Gavin bumped back, far too exhausted to do anything else.

“You’re the best, B,” he murmured, trying to settle himself back into sleep.

“You too, B.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter summary:
> 
> After Gavin's arrow missed in the chapter prior, he was struck down with a throwing knife to the shoulder and took a tumble out of the tree, cracking his bow in the process. The man he'd attempted to rob snatches him up and slams him against a tree; completely convinced he's an assassin, he demands Gavin give him the name of his clan, forcing Gavin to admit he's clanless. Revealed to be the lord of the Haywood clan, he's only stopped when Lord Narvaez turns up, sending him packing with the threat of telling the king (completely unaware that Gavin attacked him, or that he's clanless.) He proceeds to take Gavin, beaten and injured, back to the nearest town, one of his family's (who happen to hold 'ownership' over the most towns and cities in the kingdom,) and gets him patched up at one of the nicer inns where Gavin spends the next 20 hours passed out. When Ray sees him next, they speak a good deal, Ray returning his broken bow and asking if he'd like to compete as one of his archers for the upcoming annual Tourney - an athletic competition where the four major clans (exempting, of course, the Ramsey clan, due to the fact that the king plays a major role in judging) hire athletes to compete for them in various competitions, such as archery, fencing, etc. The trick is, however, you must have a clan to compete, and Gavin resolves to keep his clan status a secret from then on.  
> After Ray leaves and Gavin goes back to sleep, Dan turns up later that night, having hunted him down by way of his Ender Pearl; Gavin explains what happened, and reveals the change in plans, and though disappointed, Dan agrees to postpone the trip to the north till after the Tourney (especially since the time between then and the Tourney would allow more time for Gavin to heal as opposed to immediately after he was capable of being up on his feet.) When Gavin passes out, Dan, having prior agreed to stay till someone came along, winds up staying the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin, sat where he was, couldn’t hear much of what was going on towards the far end of the table anyways – so even if he’d tried, he wouldn’t have had anyone but the nobles towards his end to listen to anyways. Not like he minded; Ryan was just finishing up a story about one of his nephews who, still an amateur in magic, had launched one of their retail carts into the skies a week or so back, and it had King Ramsey positively roaring with laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger or content warnings for this chapter!! aside from some swears as per usual but that's just. how i write and that's just how the boys are ((and it's nothing offensive/slur-ish to the best of my knowledge))
> 
> notes at the end of the chapter explain some things mentioned in the last scene? or rather, not so much as explain them but assure that they'll be explained eventually

“Gavin, what the _hell_ – you’re the slowest person I’ve ever seen, you know that?”

The archer could only squawk indignantly at Ray, tumbling out the front door of the inn he’d been housed in for the past week and a half with arms full of his things. It was nice to get out for some fresh air – it wasn’t as though it had been too bad in the room, and better yet Dan had turned up to spend the night with him each night after his first visit, his company sorely needed, but Gavin was positively aching to get out into the sunlight. He’d never spent so long inside in his entire life. Then again, he’d never spent more than maybe a half hour inside in his entire life. It was certainly comfort he could get used to – constant warmth (especially with Dan the space heater by his side each night) and guaranteed protection from rain and snow and wind and sleet and monsters abound, not to mention real, kitchen-cooked food and blankets and a bed. Gavin could live there for the rest of his life, really, but for now it was on the road again for the three-hour ride to the capital itself.

Plodding out to the horse that had been designated for him, Gavin began to load what few things he had into the saddle bags – his broken bow, _carefully_ placed, and a spare change of clothes the innkeeper had been kind enough to gift him. He obviously didn’t tend to keep a lot on him; his jacket and tunic had been stitched up and cleaned, his scarf was draped around his neck and his gloves were snug on his hands, and Dan had been kind enough to fix the cord so that he could wear the Pearl around his neck again. His quiver, though dented and beaten from the fall, was slung over his shoulder and across his back, and the new bow Ray had been kind enough to lend him, although nowhere near as nice as his old one, was slung over his shoulder with it. All in all, he wasn’t ill equipped, he didn’t like to think, but wasn’t about to travel heavily, either.

Ray had finished packing a good deal prior – in fact, he was already mounted on his horse, one of the jousters who’d met them at the city at the flank. The three of them were going to make the journey north to the capital together.

“Are you ready finally?”

“Yes.” Gavin scoffed, mounting his own horse (with just a little difficulty) and settling himself only the saddle. It hadn’t been terribly long since he last rode, but he felt just the tiniest bit out of practice.

“Okay – I think we’re gonna just make the full ride without stopping. I’d have _liked_ to leave earlier, but with luck we’ll still be on time for the dinner,” Ray explained.

Gavin swallowed hard – if only he hadn’t taken so damn long getting ready, they probably would have left about a half hour earlier, but in the grand scheme of things, even that might not have made too much of a difference.

A quick bout of conversation was exchanged between the jouster and Ray; Gavin didn’t pay much attention, barely even catching the other’s name – Adam, was it? – but it wasn’t long before they were working their way out of the city, working up the northern trail.

Gavin had been this far north in his travels, of course, but never along this road; it was unsettling, to say the least, to find himself in a section of the forest with no level of familiarity with his surroundings, especially with how dangerous it got on your own. There were spiders and creepers and feral wolves that lurked, especially in the night, and while they weren’t far enough east for the danger of the walking dead to posit itself, the others were plenty dangerous on their own, especially in the dim shade of the forest. And while it was true they were moving quickly, likely too quickly for any creatures to bother coming after them if not threatened, Gavin couldn’t help but get the tiniest bit giddy with fright.

After perhaps an hour of riding, he could catch sight of a smaller road joining into the road they’d been travelling and, the closer they got, he could make out the sound of hooves beating along the cobblestone road at a leisurely pace. Gavin stopped.

“Gavin? You alright?” Ray slowed to a stop, too, when he realized that Gavin wasn’t moving anymore, and he cast a quick glance to the merging road ahead of them. “You don’t have to worry about other travelers, you know.”

 _Easy for you to say_ , the archer thought, but kept it to himself, remaining silent as he eyed the road with visible apprehension. Ray frowned, still peering over his shoulder, and Adam began to turn his horse around when the rider came into sight.

Gavin started, jumping in fright – they were well armed, looking burly and more than capable to take out a few travelers, no matter how well-equipped for battle they were. But as soon as Ray whipped his head back around to catch sight of the other, he brightened immediately, and the stranger across the way followed suit.

“Jack!”

“Heading north, Ray?” The man asked – it was a redundant question, but made for decent conversation anyways – as he directed his horse towards them. Gavin began to relax marginally.

“Yeah – the South road seems to be really popular, huh? Did you not want to take the East? That would have been easier for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Eh, I left early,” Jack explained. “And I was more southeast when I was getting ready to leave anyways. Visiting with some people.”

Ray hummed, nodding. “Are you suited up like that for any reason in particular, or did you just feel like riding a couple dozen miles in heavy armor for the hell of it…?”

“Ah. Well. Ryan swung around and found me at one of the cities I was staying at. One of yours – you know, the one I always stay at when I’m in the south?” When Ray nodded again in confirmation, Jack carried on. “He’s spooked about assassins, or something or another. I figured I should take some precautions, you know?”

The southern Lord scoffed, only rolling his eyes at that. “Yeah, no, he’s an idiot. He just got in a tiff with this poor guy over here.” Ray nodded over his shoulder, and when Jack turned his gaze to him, Gavin froze.

“You?”

“Uh – yeah. Me. Sorry.”

“No, don’t – why are you apologizing? Here, come here.” With little effort, Jack dismounted his horse, walking over, and, though hesitant and fraught, Gavin followed suit stiffly. The second he was in range, Jack stuck out his hand. “Lord Pattillo. But you can call me Jack.”

“Um – Gavin.” Taking his hand, the archer shook it. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Though it struck Jack odd the gangly man didn’t give a full name, he brushed it off – many of those part of lesser clans felt too ashamed to give away their ill stature to the upper clansmen, and while he didn’t think it was a good mindset to be breeding, there was little say he had in the matter – and, fists on his hips, cast his gaze towards Ray.

“Are you just heading straight up to the capital, then?”

“Yeah – hopefully we’ll make it in time. Why, you have anywhere you need to go?”

“I have to pick someone up from the next town over,” he explained, “so I’ll probably just zip ahead of all of you and leave you to your own devices, yeah?”

“Fine by me,” Ray remarked. “Gavin, do you need help getting back onto your horse? I don’t want you pulling your shoulder back open before the Tourney.”

Before he even got the chance to answer, Jack cut in. “Oh, are you one of Ray’s athletes then?” He gave the other a quick once-over. “Let me guess, archery…?”

“Oh—um. Yeah. I am.” He swallowed. “I don’t really need any help, no – I managed the first time, yeah?”

“Good luck with that, then – I mean, not too much luck, can’t have you beating us out.” Jack barked out a loud laugh, and Ray returned it.

“You know, I’ve got faith in my athletes this year – Adam here especially. You’ve met him, remember? One of the best jousters in the kingdom.”

Jack nodded, clearly in contemplation. “Yeah – the Ellis clan does seem to have a good history of jousters. Didn’t your father joust for Geoff a few years back?”

“My uncle,” Adam corrected. “And if by ‘a few years back’ you mean a decade or so, then yes.”

“Close enough.” Jack gave a sheepish grin. “Anyways. I should get a move-on – otherwise we’ll both be late.” Moving back towards his own horse, he hoisted himself back up into the saddle, exerting very little effort visibly. Gavin was impressed – he worked up a sweat just trying to get onto the thing. Then again, Jack wasn’t the one with a slowly healing wound right through his left shoulder.

“Who are you picking up?” Ray asked, tugging the reigns and stilling his restless horse.

“A few athletes. First-timers. They’ve never been, I’ve got to get them introduced around the castle and help them settle down. You know how it is.”

“All too well.” Ray shot a glance to Gavin. “I don’t think I’ve had a year yet where I haven’t gone through it.”

“You’d better hurry up – it takes some time, you know that. And the last thing you want is to be late for dinner. Whatever will the king think?” Jack grinned, backing his horse up and heading back down the road. “Later, Narvaez.”

“I won’t be late!” Ray shouted in rebuttal, but Jack was already well down the road, horse in a proper run, and Ray could only give an exasperated grin.

“Alright. Get back up on your horse, Gav, we need to get a move on. I refuse to be late now.”

Gavin nodded, shuffling back over. It had put a fair deal of strain on him the first time to clamber onto it but he’d managed and he was certain this time would be no different, and as he tugged himself up – using the right arm for the majority of support – he found himself seated comfortable back in the saddle with a bit of work. At least, as comfortable as you could be on a hard leather saddle like that. They weren’t necessarily the most comfortable things, not compared to the padded seats inside carriages, even the cheap, run-down trailers he’d gotten used to among bands of itinerants, but it was infinitely better than riding the bare back of a horse without it.

“You good?” Ray raised an eyebrow, but it was a question posited out of genuine concern. Gavin nodded.

“Yeah – tippy toppers.”

Snorting, Ray tugged the reigns tight in his hands, twisting his horse back into the proper direction of travel. “Let’s go, then.”

**

“Shit. We’re _dead_.”

Chainmail clattering as he walked – very nearly ran, actually – through the corridor with a small collection of athletes behind him, Ray swore none too quietly, removing his gloves and loosening his belt and, in general, beginning to strip in the hallway. Gavin frowned; he wasn’t sure if this was common practive or just Ray practice.

“Shit shit _shit_ , we’re so late. Shit. Everyone go get changed, our rooms are in the red corridor.”

Stopping short, Gavin froze, unpoised and self-aware. “Um – Ray?”

“What?” Stopping abruptly, Ray turned to him, belt half off with his sheathed sword dangling precariously from it. It wouldn’t fall, not with the way it was fastened, but it banged against the stone grounded heavily and Gavin wondered if the steel inside was sharp enough to drive right through the thick, hard leather of its casing.

“I don’t—“ He swallowed hard. “I don’t know where the red corridor is.”

“Ah, shit, that’s right. First time in the castle. Sorry – follow me.” He turn on his heel again, taking off at only a marginally slackened pace, and Gavin had to hurry to catch up with him as the seven or so others with him dispersed.

Traversing the hallways, the large majority of them came upon a large corridor, the entrance to with was framed in red curtains and the hallway itself, wide and broad, was lined in various decorations, roses potted in tables along the walls included.

“I get the red corridor every year,” he explained. “For obvious reasons. I mean, just look at my family crest.” He tugged at his tunic, straightening it out and displaying the rose-centric crest on his front for all to see, though it was Gavin he was addressing specifically. “We do a lot of agriculture. Real big on roses, too; they’re everywhere down south. Most of these are imported, actually. Roses don’t tend to grow a lot up north.”

“Ray, you’re rambling.” One of his fencers – Jose, if Gavin was correct? – flanked the Lord’s other side with a sheepish grin. Both of them, Gavin expected, were fairly good friends.

“Of course I am, I’m nervous as hell! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it’s gonna be if just one of us is late?” He stopped short in front of one of the doors, clearly fraught. “Gavin, you’re rooming here.”

Gavin nodded, the action almost hesitant in nature. “Yeah – uh. Thank you.” His arms were full of his very few possessions. Ray’s had been carried up to the suite of the corridor by servants, despite his reluctance to part with his saddle bags, but Gavin hardly had anything with him at all and he’d insisted on doing it himself, if, at the least, to make things easier on those servants of the castle. It seemed like he’d been one of the only ones, and in part, it baffled him. Sure, they were individuals here to serve those higher in stature than them, but they were human beings with a workload capacity and there was no use in loading them up with menial tasks. And at the very least, Gavin was not among those higher on the social hierarchy than them. If anything, he was countless rungs below even them.

“Hurry your ass up, too,” Ray called back, Jose still flanking his side as they hurried down the corridor to their own rooms. “There should already be some clothes in there for you.”

The door, Gavin was relieved to find, was completely unlocked, and he pushed it open with effort – the thick wood was heavy, and creaked loudly against the force, swinging open to reveal a dark and unlit room. Once the door was shut, seeing was far easier said than done; with little light to work by, his eyes were forced to adjust – an arduous task after the stark change in environment – as he fumbled around for a candle or something to light it with.

After getting his hands on a tinder box at last, with his eyes steadily adjusting to the dark – he often envied Dan, with his impeccable night vision, though he knew the practical downshot to it all was high sensitivity to the light of the daytime that left him more often than not with god-awful migraines anywhere out of the shade – he managed to light the majority of the candles and provided light sources in the room and brought it to livable condition. It was very likely the nicest room he’d ever been in, let alone had the privilege to stay in; infinitely nicer than the room Ray had provided him back at the inn (that wasn’t to say he wasn’t grateful for that establishment, of course, because even that was far nicer than anything he’d even slept in at the time – the comparison was not intended to diminish the value of either shelter,) the room was at least twenty feet wide and thirty feet deep, with a large window above the large double bed against the back wall. A stack of clothing, as it appeared, was stacked on the dark red sheets of the bed, varying shades of green and brown that stuck out starkly from its claret and crimson surroundings. The room, much like the corridor Gavin had just come from, was defined with a clear theme of red, as the name would clearly suggest, and Gavin yearned to see the rest of the corridors – if decorated so extravagantly and so such great lengths, surely they were works of art in themselves.

To the left side of the room, assuming a position facing in from the doorway, there was a large fireplace, presently unlit, but with a variety of knick-knacks on the mantle and above it, a large painting of the largest city to the south. The city where Ray’s family was centered, presumably, and the rest of the rooms very likely had paintings of southern regions as well if it was the Narvaez clan and their athletes that made their home in the red corridor for the few shorts weeks of the tourney. He wondered if the rest of the corridors were themed on the regions of the nation – it seemed very likely, especially if each Lord from each region were to stay there very likely multiple times a year.

He’d only ever seen the city from the outside – it wasn’t one that was hard to recognize, but he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it if he hadn’t been by there with Dan once before. There weren’t able to linger, of course, having to move up quickly into the forest before the sun got too high for Dan to be able to function, but he remembered it vividly. He wondered if the city was as lively and lovely from the inside as it looked from the outside.

Eventually, Gavin at last made his way over to the bed to sift through the clothing that had been left for him. It was all high in quality – far nicer than anything he’d ever been given (or even stolen or, on rare occasion, bought,) the fabric was soft and pleasant to the touch, and sturdy in stitching and production, and he was all too eager to strip out of his travelling clothes and dress himself in his wealthier provisions.

The top, a pale beige tunic (almost close to white in color,) came coupled with a dark green vest to go over it, and black pants to be tucked into boots of a dark brown shade. Much to his delight, the sleeves of his new tunic could be tucked into his gloves once those were laced up around his arms, and with a color matching the pants, he liked to think they brought it all together. Very likely it would have been fine without them – that was the original intention of the outfit, after all – but it was nice to have something familiar on him other than the pearl dangling from its leather chord all tucked beneath his shirt. And besides, an archer shouldn’t be without their bracers, right? It would fit the part nicely as it was.

A banging on the door startled him from his inspection of his physical state in the mirror.

“Are you ready?” The voice was Ray’s, all too easy to tell even muffled by the wood, and Gavin nodded.

He quickly realized Ray couldn’t see him, and, embarrassed, croaked out a reply. “Yeah.”

“I’m just gonna assume you’re decent.” The door opened not a second later, Ray peering in from the slightly brighter hallway. “Come on, let’s go.”

Gavin nodded – this time, not in vain – and hurried for the door.

**

The dinner table was massive – the dinner hall, doubly so.

Stretching at least 30 feet across the room, the table was prepped, it appeared, to seat some forty or so individuals. The majority of the Lords were already seated – Gavin recognized Lords Haywood and Pattillo already, the friendliness in the looks they gave him varying drastically. Ray was the only one yet to join them, and he hurried over to do so and take his place among them, but immediately beckoned Gavin over once he had. Tentatively, the archer complied.

“So you all know the rest of my athletes,” Ray began as Gavin steadily came into earshot. “But not my second archer this year – this is Gavin, I patched him up after an incident with some robbers.” Gavin didn’t miss the pointed, almost smug Ray shot Ryan, even if it was brief, barely lasting a second. The irritation radiating from Ryan was nearly palpable.

“We’ve met,” Jack remarked, more for the others than anyone else. Ryan nodded, still investing his interest in something across the room as opposed to meeting Gavin’s gaze.

“Us as well.”

“Damn, I’m the only one left?” The last of the Lords, seated next to Ray, stood; he was shorter than Gavin in stature, but also clearly stronger, and equally – if not more so – as seasoned in the art of outdoor survival, obviously far more than the other nobles accompanying him. With a curly mop of russet hair and freckles spattered across his pale face, he wouldn’t have looked terribly threatening, were it not for the bear pelt secured around his shoulders and the knife in the belt around his waist and the strengthened build, and overall the general disposition that he knew about 37 different ways to kill a man. Gavin wondered if he presented himself like that for all his first meetings.

“You get around then, I guess. Call me Mogar.” The man offered a hand, and Gavin took it, meeting his firm and hearty shake with an almost tentative one. The other gave something of a shit-eating grin, almost smug at his diffidence.

The given name didn’t surprise Gavin; many from the north went by a title, a warrior’s name earned in the wilderness. They were names worn with honor, many preferring them to their birth names – they carried righteousness and pride, after all, in a way that something passed on by parental units could not. It only made sense that the Lord of the Jones clan, among the fiercest warriors of all, would bear his with the heaviest of immodesties.

“Alright.” Ray clapped Gavin hard on his good shoulder, earning a squawk out of him. “Why don’t you take the seat… four from mine?”

The seat in question was empty, and Gavin nodded, slinking away as Mogar reseated himself and Ray took his place in his own chair, and for the most part, all that was left was to sit idly by.

It was a short wait later before the king emerged at last, flanked by young daughter and wife – he was a tall man, dark-haired and with a confident step in his gait, but at the same time, gentle and almost comforting just to be in the presence of. Everyone at the table stood, from the lowest of the athletes to the highest of the lords, and the athletes took their position on one knee with heads bowed in reverence. Gavin followed suit.

“I’m so glad we’ve got such a full house this year,” the king remarked at last, he and his family taking their seats – only after they were comfortable did everyone else proceed to theirs. King Ramsey was one Gavin knew well through the stories he’d amassed throughout his travels – righteous and well-loved, he received a great deal of respect from his people, all of it well-earned.

The majority of the evening carried on with loud socialization and ruckus – it was far less about the meal itself, marvelous as it was (though Gavin couldn’t be sure if how much he enjoyed it came from his unseasoned pallet, and how much that showed) but more about settling down for one night with light hearts and little thought of bitter rivalries and fervent desires for glory. The Lords did the majority of the storytelling – many towards the other end stuck to their own little niches, entertaining themselves when they couldn’t hear over distance and rowdy laughter, but Gavin was, thankfully, close enough that he could hear everything exchanged by the nobles. And good thing, too, because even they had more than enough to share that had him buckling over and aching in laughter – surprising, really, with how much you think they’d spend their time cooped up in their stuffy manors and castles. But the impressions he’d gathered over the years, so it seemed, weren’t quite up to par; they were constantly out and about, travelling the land and doing their best to enjoy themselves while still dealing with their diplomacies. And many of them – the king _especially_ , surprisingly – had wild stories from drunken nights best told as they fell deeper into intoxication.

Gavin, sat where he was, couldn’t hear much of what was going on towards the far end of the table anyways – so even if he’d tried, he wouldn’t have had anyone but the nobles towards his end to listen to anyways. Not like he minded; Ryan was just finishing up a story about one of his nephews who, still an amateur in magic, had launched one of their retail carts into the skies a week or so back, and it had King Ramsey positively _roaring_ with laughter.

“It’s still in the air,” Ryan managed through his own fit of laughter, and it did nothing to help the king’s case.

Gavin had given up at finishing his drink ages ago – they were being brought out faster than anyone could finish them and there was definitely plenty to go around but he couldn’t stuff down his laughter any significant period of time long enough to drink without damn near choking to death. And at any rate, training started early the next morning – the last thing he needed was to put up with that hangover all the next day, and it had been so long since he’d had any bevs he was afraid he’d get too carried away and drink himself into an early grave. He’d barely managed to finish eating through all the stories they’d told. He could do without the alcohol.

“Jack, weren’t you just down southeast by the Ferinorian border?” The king paused, taking a long swig of his drink – he’d had more than enough already but it didn’t feel like he’d be giving up and retiring any time soon. “Did you go visit the old wizard?”

Jack snorted. “I’m not even convinced that’s not just an old wives’ tale, Geoff,” he remarked, his pointed look nowhere near as serious as he’d meant it to be. “But at any rate, no – the great sycamore’s too far out of the way. I was just visiting an old friend.”

“Hold on, wizard?” For the first time since dinner had been served, Gavin spoke up.

“You don’t know?” It was Michael who replied. “Shit, I’m all the way in the north and even I know.”

“Uh – I don’t—” Gavin wasn’t quite sure how to explain he wasn’t familiar with any southern mythos. “I’m really only familiar with northeastern stories.”

“Like Kaptoras’s history?” Geoff asked, and Gavin eased up. Finally, someone who knew about stories that weren’t passed from clan to clan, but rather, traveler to traveler.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“You must’ve spent a lot of time travelling, then – no one talks about all that in the big cities. It’s all about the first four kings in history classes; load of bullshit, if you ask me. You can’t just cut out what happened to Ipsevere after the First King’s reign. Infinitely more interesting than learning about a bunch of economic crisis during the Gap, if you ask me.”

Gavin nodded. “I’ve heard a bit of each – Eastern histories have a lot more detail, don’t they?”

“ _Loads_ more.”

“So – sorry, my point was, what wizard?”

“Bogbeard’s last known disciple,” Geoff explained. “This young centaur from Ferinor; brilliant thing, supposedly. One of the most powerful wizards in history, let alone alive. Or something like that.”

“It’s just an old wives’ tale,” Jack insisted. “There _are_ no good wizards left – not even from the east.”

“Of _course_ there’s no good wizards left from the east.” The king rolled his eyes. “The two brothers died about a decade back. But that doesn’t mean there’s none left in general. I’m telling you, you’re all wrong.”

“I’m with him here,” Gavin remarked. “Bogbeard did have one apprentice after everything blew over with Israphel in the east. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“I have no clue what the hell any of you are on about.” Michael leaned back in his chair. “What’s an Israphel?”

“He’s—” Geoff began to explain, fervent and exuberant, but a hand on his chest cut him off.

“You’re getting a little riled up,” the queen remarked, and King Ramsey slumped back into his chair.

“What time is it, anyways?” He asked.

“Just past eleven, if I’m correct?”

“Oh, _bollocks_!” Gavin sprung from his chair, the wooden furniture clattering to the ground behind him. “I’ve got to get up at dawn tomorrow, I shouldn’t have stayed up this late!”

Geoff barked out a laugh. “Do you see anyone else worried? Sit down, stay a while.”

“No, but – I don’t handle my bevs well in the morning, I’ve got to sleep it off if I expect to get anything done.”

Geoff was about to protest, insist he stay, but Ray flapped a hand.

“You need to get as much sleep as you can anyways,” he replied. “Get your shoulder back into shape.”

“What happened to your shoulder?” The king asked, and it took everything Gavin had not to cast his gaze to Lord Haywood.

“Encounter with robbers,” he replied, voice almost forced. Geoff didn’t seem to catch it, and relief washed over him. Ryan _knew_ , after all – anything done to jeopardize his reputation would more than likely just result in him spilling the truth about Gavin’s less than desirable social standings.

Geoff frowned, expression sympathetic. “Damn, poor luck, yeah? Get to bed, um – sorry, what was your name?”

“Gavin.” He stood, unpoised and ill at ease, but with luck, it wouldn’t show how frightened he was the king would ask for a surname. Thankfully, he only nodded.

“Yeah, Gavin. Rest up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so obviously there's been a lot of talk about the mythos/history of the universe and all? and while little to none of it will make sense (you might catch some SoI references!! but i highly doubt you'd get any of the other stuff about the wizard who will... very likely not make an appearance until after Gavin has taken the crown and with how slow the story is moving along, expect that to be aaaaaages out  
> also expect little to no explanation on that (((if you know me you can ask about it I guess!! especially if you know me from tumblr or just outright know my url idk)))  
> the point iS everything will be explained mostly through storytelling? i set it up in this chapter to help start establishing a link between Geoff and Gavin that will allow a rather close friendship to work itself out, especially in the next chapter or two when all that stuff gets explained. so there's that. do not fret friends.
> 
> [EDIT:] there was a small redact that i'll try to remember to mention in the notes of the next chapter for people who don't go back and look at the notes of the old ones. two nations have had their names changed - Pinastrof to Ferinor and Kaptoraria to just Kaptoras. just so the names sound and look better.
> 
> okay thank you for being patient throughout all the sporadic updates  
> i should probably warn you all right now that the next few chapters are going to be hell for me to push through? just because the content is r eaaaaally almost boring for me to write (I mean it isn't _boring_ so to speak but it's definitely just filler and relationship/character/setting building stuff meant to fill in the gaps between large plot events i suppose and those are a bit harder for me to write)  
>  and so if it's taking me a long time to write a certain part i might jump to later parts just to keep my daily word output up for nanowrimo, meaning chapters might be a little slow (not any slower than usual probably, that's been my big issue writing all this. but thankfully this next chapter, once i get past some guff in the beginning, should be really fun and nice to write. so there's that!!)  
> sorry that was a little rambly but tl;dr because of the nature of the next few chapters they might continue to have some slow output because they're harder to write i guess


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But between the King’s magics and his own attempts to thwart it, it eventually just drove him into a state of madness. He was desperate to get revenge on anybody at this point, and he’d given up trying to keep up appearances till the skin had turned ashen and rotted, and his hollow eyes sunk in and turned the brightest glowing red, and he lashed out, laying waste to the town. And eventually he disappeared for a bit, somewhere into the desert, and reappeared a few decades later to lay waste to the rest of Kaptoras.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick redact to the fic that needs to be mentioned in case anyone didn't see the notes from last chapter - two nations have had their names changed - Pinastrof to Ferinor and Kaptoraria to just Kaptoras. just so the names sound and look better. because the old names were kind of awful imo sorry

The light of dawn positively seared into his brain and Gavin was quite sure he’d never regretted drinking quite as much as he did then in his life. The insistent banging on the door wasn’t helping, either.

“Gavin, are you up?” Like the night before, the voice was Ray’s, and Gavin only groaned in response.

After a moment with no real, audible response out of the archer, Ray tried again.

“I’m coming in, be decent.” The door swung open a moment later – and Gavin was decent, beneath the covers and donning his tunic from the night before. It wasn’t like he had any real reason to be _in_ decent.

"Seriously?"

Gavin raised his head just enough to see the Lord, grumbling incoherently.

"You're seriously not up still."

Failing at his first attempt at words, Gavin stopped, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"'S bloody bright," he managed eventually, voice hoarse and slurred.

"Yeah, that's what the sun does," Ray remarked, the sarcasm thick in his voice, but the expression on his voice was nothing short of sympathetic. "Stay here."

He disappeared out the door immediately, closing it gently behind him, and Gavin sunk back into the bed, shutting his eyes against the bright world. It was a solid ten or so minutes before Ray returned - this time, with a pint in one hand and a burnt chunk of bread in the other.

"Water." He handed the glass over to Gavin, and its contents were not indeed beer or ale, but some of the clearest water he'd ever seen in his life. He downed it within seconds.

"And burnt bread." This time, Gavin took it with distaste as Ray attempted to pass it to him, and the Lord rolled his eyes at the archer's expression of distrust. "Helps with hangovers. The carbon or something, I don't know. Just take it."

If Ray thought it was a good idea, then he wasn't about to turn it down. Anything to quell the pounding headache and the churning stomach. So he took it a bit more eagerly, biting into it and nearly choking on the taste. Ray laughed.

"Good god, Gav, take it easy."

Nodding sheepishly, he took a smaller bite this time, quick to wash it down with the remains of the water.

"You don't handle your alcohol well, do you?" Ray clucked his tongue, taking the glass back. Gavin shook his head.

"Obviously not. How are you so chipper?"

"Did you _see_ me drink at all last night?"

Gavin shook his head.

"Yeah – I prefer not to deal with this bullshit."

Grumbling in response, Gavin didn’t dignify it with an answer in words – mostly because Ray was right.

“Sit tight,” Ray carried on, backing up towards the door. “You’re gonna need as much water as you can get. Just don’t come crying to me when you’ve gotta piss like a racehorse.”

The door shut a moment later, significantly gentler than before as to minimize the noise that could have Gavin’s head pounding all over (worse than it already was, anyhow) and the archer sunk back into the bed. He hadn’t even _drank_ that much – still his head was throbbing and his stomach was churning and being conscious, really, was hell in a hand basket, and he’d have liked nothing more than to slip back to sleep. But he’d agreed to play for Ray, and he couldn’t back out now – not after the hospitality he’d be shown, and especially not when his fake social status was on the line. He had to see it through, even if it was decidedly… less than legal.

Unmoving, Gavin lay curled in bed, very nearly drifting off like he yearned to (despite having told himself not to) but right as he sat on the cusp of sleep the door swung open again and he groaned, the sound a sure sign of irritation. Ray gave something of a smirk, though he couldn’t see it.

“Here.” Setting the glass on the table beside the bed, he plucked up the burnt bread from Gavin’s hands, placing it gently beside the drink. “No food in bed – get up before you finish eating. It’ll help, I promise.”

Gavin gave a weak nod, and another tiny little grumble, and Ray lingered only a moment longer before turning on his heels for the door.

“Training starts in an hour – you can do whatever you want but you’re probably gonna want to head down there.”

“Wait, hold on—” Gavin raised his head, suddenly interested, though voice still thick with sleep. “What do you mean, I can do whatever I want?”

Ray raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, no one’s gonna force you to go down there?” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world – like there was an underlying question as to why Gavin didn’t know it, but then again, the archer had never exactly been to the games. Maybe he should cut the boy some slack. “What I’m trying to say is, you’re on your own now. The courtyards and the fields around the castle are open for athlete use – we don’t own you, you can do whatever you want. I mean, it’s probably to your best advantage to get as much practice as you can in, but hey, who am I to tell you how to live your life?” After a moment, Ray reconsidered his last words, and added, “But seriously, try and get some practice once you’re feeling up to it. I want your shoulder back in shape and I want Ryan bested this year. Better yet, I want _you_ to be the one to best him.”

Gavin grumbled, nodding weakly into his pillow. That was nice to hear – he was in charge of his own fate from here out, a sorely needed facet to all this. He’d feel too much like a grounded bird being shoved into a tightly knit schedule; if all that was asked of him was to attend dinner (and likely not even that, considering he highly doubted they’d put on a massive feast every night for the week and a half leading up to the tourney,) then he could very easily live under the assumed stature of a respected clansman. Maybe they didn’t have it so bad, after all.

**

It was just past noon by the time Gavin felt himself in adequate enough condition to be dragging himself out of bed and dressing properly for a bout of archery. He likely wouldn’t do much – while the burned bread and the water Ray had provided him bright and early that morning certainly did wonders on the hangover, he still wasn’t necessarily in top condition after all that. Rest would be sorely needed before tomorrow, when he fully intended to pull out all the stops and buckle down in getting back into practice and back into shape, but for now he needed to get up and move about, and a casual round of shooting was the best bet for that, he decided.

Much to his delight he found the light was doing little to his headache – same with loud sounds, though he didn’t want to push his luck, and as he shuffled about the room, the dull throbbing that still resided was, at the very least, not getting any worse. That was infinitely better than nothing, he decided. Joints still stiff from the long sleep, it took some effort to pull together and get back into the vest and the trousers and the boots he’d been provided, and to lace up his bracers over the sleeves of his tunic, but he was dressed in no time and then it was only a matter of finding the bow Ray had lent him.

Holding it didn’t feel quite right, even without having fired it – he yearned for the bow Dan gave him, the one he shot best with, but it was still cracked right down the middle. A clean split, at least, nearly dead center, but he hadn’t the slightest clue how to repair it and he was shit out of luck when it came to finding someone to do so. He’d have to get Dan to do it for him – he hadn’t been able to muster up the guts to tell the Enderman he’d broken the bow the last he saw him. Even still he figured it would be a painstaking task, but it was fully necessary if he wanted his bow back. Which he did – desperately.

The corridor was even more brightly lit – thankfully his headache didn’t get worse, necessarily, but the light certainly did nothing to help it – and as he quietly slipped his way down hallways and staircases, avoiding unnecessary attention or interaction, he found himself at the training fields in the back of the castle soon enough. Which was good, because honestly, it was an awfully long trek and he was terribly close to abandoning the pursuit.

The training field, while not quite as nice as the coliseum they would be competing in the day of the Tourney, was vast and complete with everything the athletes might need – a long stretch of tilting field at its farthest northern reaches, an archery range against the southeast corner, stretching to the north till its border touched the jouster’s domain and summed its south-to-north length at least thirty meters, various straw-filling dummies along the eastern wall for hand-to-hand combat, and large rings for swordfight and hand-to-hand combat piled up along the edge of that for those competing in combat and coliseum competitions. Spattered across the field were athletes of all kinds, concentrated in various areas, but, much to Gavin’s delight, the archery range was mostly empty. All the better, he thought, considering he wasn’t sure how steady his aim was going to be.

Only one other archer was at the range – only one he’d seen in passing, so definitely not one of the Narvaez clan’s archers now that he’d been formally introduced to each and every athlete he’d be contending alongside with. Those he’d be competing against – well, those were a mystery yet.

Slinging his quiver over one of the wooden posts beside him at the row for the target he’d chosen – best to keep the weight off his shoulder, he decided – Gavin carefully took the lended bow from his shoulder and, with deliberation and care, tested the mobility of his left shoulder, the bow in hand. So long as his arm didn’t enter an obtuse angle in relation to his torso, he decided, he was in the clear; the aching and the more than unpleasant feeling of tugging skin and scabbing and stitches didn’t start anywhere at a right angle or below. Which made archery perfect.

It took a few rounds for Gavin to get into his element; the first missed the target completely and he was forced to re-evaluate the weight and the tension of his weapon at hand. The second dug straight into the middle of the round target in the distance and, much to his delight, with some care and calibration the third arrow found its way just an inch short of dead center, right in the middle portion of the painted target. Perfect. A fourth arrow followed suit, and a fifth. A sixth missed the target altogether by at least ten yards straight into the air when a voice startled a jump out of him.

“For someone with an injured shoulder you sure do have a hell of a good aim.”

“Bloody hell, _mullered_ that,” Gavin mumbled, lowering the bow arm with a good deal of effort as the pulling sensation returned. It was more than easy enough to pin an owner to the voice when they laughed, loudly and more amused with his mistake than he cared for.

“Lord Mogar—” He spun around, poised to bow (he figured that was the right thing to do, very probably – he wasn’t sure how to ask in the presence of nobility,) but the other stopped him straight away, pushing him back up with a firm hand to the good shoulder.

“Hey, don’t do that shit,” he insisted, voice firm. “And please, seriously, it’s Mogar.”

“I didn’t think nobility frequented the training fields?”

“I’m not gonna sit around all day. Makes you feel too much like a grounded bird.” Moving just a few feet, Mogar found a place to lean against the wood of the pillar. “Besides. I don’t upkeep the same stuffy expectations. A Lord’s no better than his subjects if he hasn’t earned it.”

Gavin hesitated, wondering if it was the right question to ask. “…Have you earned it?”

“I like to think so.” Mogar scowled. “But I mean, hell, there’s a lot more expected of me back home. So maybe only by your standards.”

“I think if they let you rule them then you must be more than capable.”

“Please. I don’t _rule_ them – I lead them. Nowhere in the job description does it say I’m forcing them to follow.”

Gavin swallowed – this was exactly the kind of leader he wanted. With luck, Mogar wouldn’t be the kind to look down on the clanless for petty social hierarchy reasons. In fact, he was quite certain that was exactly the opposite of the kind of person Mogar was. And that was heartening – especially since there was every chance he could take the throne and make a change for Gavin’s kind should King Ramsey ever lose the crown for any reason. Then again, it didn’t really matter much considering Gavin had no intention of letting _anyone_ more, let alone Lord Mogar of the north, know about his lineage, or rather, lack thereof.

“The point is – I’m not gonna walk on water or whip a bunch of fish and bread out of my ass. I’m not a walking god.”

“Never said you were,” Gavin replied, dismissing the statement. “Just a good man.”

For a moment Gavin thought he’d said the wrong thing, what with how quietly Mogar was watching him, but the unreadable expression melted away as he softened considerably and it put Gavin’s nerves to ease as well.

“I like you,” the Lord remarked. “Come here – I wanna see how you throw a punch.”

“Um—injured shoulder, remember?” Even so, he followed after when Mogar moved for  the training dummies, snatching his quiver from the column and resolving to retrieve his arrows later.

“Just the left though, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“The way you move.” He nodded for the nearby wall. “Set your shit down.”

Gavin wasn’t about to argue, and complied, bow and quiver leaning up against the stone wall as he all but bounded to Mogar’s side.

“Go on.” The Lord nodded this time for one of the training dummies. “Hit it.”

Hesitating – really, it might hurt to throw a punch in the bracers – Gavin gathered up his resolve before doing exactly as he was told and throwing a punch for the dummy. It narrowly landed, very nearly grazing off, but the strength in his dominant arm was enough to send it spinning from the nature of the impact. Gavin risked a half a grin. That was a good sign, right?

“Not bad.” Mogar nodded slowly, expression contemplative. “Especially not for an archer.”

Gavin squawked indignantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The same laugh Mogar had given at his misfired arrow tumbled out, and it did an alarmingly good job of putting Gavin at ease.

“Archers don’t do hand-to-hand, moron. And _that’s_ obvious – but the strength in your arm’s good enough.”

“I suppose _you_ can do better?” Gavin spat it out like some sort of bitter challenge but really it should have been more than a statement – yeah, he really did suppose Mogar could do better. Nothing like a northern society based around the value of warriors to shape a real fighting machine.

“Yeah, shithead, I can. Move.” It was an outright order this time and Gavin wasn’t about to argue – he jumped out of the way right as Mogar’s arm reached out to take the shoulder of the training dummy and twist it back into place. And within just one or two well-aimed punches, it was crashing to the ground, and Gavin thought he heard the wood of the supports crack.

“ _Christ_.”

“Yeah.” Mogar was grinning widely now, smugly. “Trust me, _I can do better_.”

“So are you this big revered warrior from where you’re from, then?” Gavin imagined so, what with a given name like that.

“Among the best.” Mogar bent at the torso to right the training dummy he’d bashed to the ground, but it sagged under its own weight with its newly cracked framework. The Lord grimaced.

“What do they do to determine that in your clan? Is there— well, what happens?” His initial question was as to how they decided that in general. But considering his cover for his accent – that he’d spent time in the north, particularly around strongholds rife with noble warriors – and considering it was very likely Ray had shared that with at least one of the Lords (and there was no telling who, so it got to the point where he was practically forced to live the lie,) it was wise to shift it from clan to clan. As he recalled from things Dan had mentioned in passing, things differed from clan to clan, especially in a society so dead-set on adhering strongly to the traditions of their history.

“There’s an initiation right, I guess.” Mogar delivered a blow to the training dummy. It rocked on its base. “You strive your whole life for greatness as a warrior but when you’re of age, if it’s what you want, you earn your title. You take this journey out into the wild and if you survive it, well—” Another blow. “One of the elders grant you a warrior’s name.”

“What does Mogar mean?”

Another blow. “It’s the name of an old war god. Only the best of the best get named after the deities.”

Gavin hummed softly in reply – that didn’t surprise him at all. Mogar seemed exactly the kind to fall under the category of _best of the best_.

“What’s your real name, then?” He asked. It was a risky question, that much he should have known, but it didn’t properly occur to him till Mogar’s last strike, delivered rough and tense, had the wooden frames beneath the fabric and padding of the training dummy cracking loudly one last time, the whole thing collapsing. Both the Lord and the archer looked terribly uneasy, though both for different reasons.

“Show me more of your archery.”

Gavin wasn’t about to argue.

**

The third bullseye had the center so crammed, each arrow fired within millimeters of the others so that all sat impaled on the target in a tight cluster, that Gavin wasn’t sure he could fire another arrow. He lowered his arm, letting out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding in.

“Nobody has _shit_ on you,” Mogar remarked. “I guess Ray’s taking archery this year.”

That had Gavin beaming – nothing like a good confidence boost to cheer a lad up.

“Where’d you learn to shoot, anyways?”

“Grew up doing it,” the archer replied. “Had a friend that learned with me. He used to be better but we’re about even now.”

One more arrow burrowed itself in the ring just around the center, barely outside of the red bullseye, and Gavin swore. Mogar only laughed.

“That looks like a bow from the south,” he remarked. “I thought you spent most of your time in the north?”

Ahh, so the Lord _had_ been told Gavin’s lie. “Uh – well, Lord Narvaez lent it to me. Mine’s broken.”

“Shit, really? That’s got to be the worst for an archer – you have a plan to get it fixed?”

“I was just going to wait till I ran across who made it? I mean, it could be a while, but, you know…”

“Ask the queen.”

“Sorry, _what_?” Gavin looked wholly and unequivocally scandalized – you don’t just _ask the queen_ about a broken bow. You didn’t just ask the queen when you weren’t anything but a lower-class athlete. Especially only one pretending to be part of the social caste.

“She does a lot of woodworking. She was actually planning on going into it before she and Geoff were elected monarchs, I think?” Mogar paused, mulling over the thought for only a brief moment, before shaking his head with a tiny little shrug. “The point being, if anyone can fix something it’s her. She’s probably dying to get her hands on a project anyways.”

“I don’t think you understand, that’s the _queen_ —”

Mogar cut him off. “Who also happens to be a close friend of mine. Don’t be such a fucking baby, just tell her I sent you if you have to. Christ.”

Gavin bit his lip, teeth digging in hard. “Are you _certain_?”

“Yes, I’m certain. Look, she’s a really nice woman, and she’ll be more than happy to help you if you’re polite. I’m serious, she’s got to go as stir-crazy as I can without something to work on, help her out.”

Making a grumbly little noise of frustration and indecision in the back of his throat, he nodded with reluctance, the motion stiff and forced. “Okay.”

“She’s not actually very scary and intimidating once you meet her.” Mogar paused, reconsidering, and added, “I mean, unless you make her angry. But you should be fine.”

“ _Should_ be?”

“Well don’t be a shithead and you _should_ be fine.”

**

“Did you get out today, Gavin?”

Dinner that night was hardly as loud – it seemed many of the athletes only cared about making sure they were in attendance for the first night’s feast, considering that was the most important. The second day, however, had simmered down considerably, the table only maybe half as full as the night before and the dull roar of the surrounding crowd significantly quieter and more manageable.

“A bit, yeah,” the archer replied. This time he was right beside Ray, with the athletes who’d separated them the day prior no longer an issue, and it was now easier for them to address one another directly. “Went out onto the archery range. Mogar was there!” He leaned forward, making an attempt to look past Ray at the other Lord, who just flashed him a cocky grin.

“Yeah, the kid’s great. You’re all _fucked_.”

Ryan scowled. “We’ll see when we get there, won’t we? Trust me, I’ve got an _outstanding_ team going this year.”

“I don’t know, I mean, he’s the absolute last person I’d want to pit my archers up against, you know?”

“’m not _that_ good,” Gavin quickly put in, though indeed he was incredibly confident of his own skills. It was _not_ , however, a good idea to continue to provoke Lord Haywood like that. He, after all, had the capability to throw Gavin out of the competition at any time with just a few words. And that wasn’t something the archer wanted to risk – never mind the fact that it could mean putting his neck (literally) on the line, but he wasn’t about to let Ray down after everything he’d done and even if he took it easy and stuck to second or third, it was the very least he could do.

“No, trust me, _you are._ ” Ever persistent the Lord of the north was, much to Gavin’s dismay.

“Yeah, like you’re one to talk—” If all else fails, the archer though, change the subject. “—I haven’t seen _anybody_ fight quite that well. And I’ve seen a lot of pretty capital fighters before.”

“Well _I’m_ expected to have some sort of talent – you’re just some kid they picked up off the side of the road and you’re like some god damn archery god.”

“I am _not_!” It was a squawky, desperate noise, but before Mogar could call him out or make fun of him for it, a roaring laugh cut them both off.

“Are you bugging the kid?” It was the king who asked the question, finally joining them at his place at the head of the table. Gavin scowled, and Mogar snickered.

“Maybe a little,” he conceded. “He’s a talented little prick is all.”

“Yeah?” Slumping into his seat, the very first thing the king did was grab for his pint of ale. “Did you run into each other in the training fields today?”

“Yeah.” Gavin wasn’t about to let this conversation be made about him. “He’s really quite impressive when he fights.”

“Oh, shut up, you didn’t even see me fight another person,” Mogar rebutted, but it was anything but aggressive. “ _’Ooh, look at Mogar, the great and powerful warrior who can knock down a few training dummies, he’s so capital, wow.’_ ” Atrocious and inaccurate, his imitation of the archer’s accent had laughter bubbling up on their end of the table, overtaking the noise of the rest of the dining hall. Gavin flushed, embarrassed and indignant.

It was going to be a hell of a night.

**

Completely and wholly unsure of himself, Gavin stood at the royal chamber door, willing himself to knock. It wasn’t going terribly well.

“Oh, yeah, just ask the bloomin’ queen,” he mumbled ever-so-quietly, spitting out a poor impersonation of Mogar’s Rerbum accent. “Easier said than done, bloody munger.”

It was a while longer still before he could tell himself to knock anyways, knuckles gently rapping on the door. And a moment later, the broad spruce door swung open, on the other side of it the Queen, clad in one of her simpler dresses – which even then, was magnificent.

It took Queen Ramsey a moment to place the archer on the other side, and when she’d identified him as one of the athletes, she softened, that guarded look beginning to fade. “Can I help you?”

“Um—” Gavin wasn’t sure how to greet someone in the highest spot on the social totem pole and it left him incredibly apprehensive; he settled on bending at the waist, attempting to bow without colliding with her, and struggled to find words once he was straightened out. It was plain on the Queen’s face that his absolute rotten education in formal manners was taken lightly and facetiously, but he still felt like hell for it. “Well, Lord Mogar said I should come to you about my broken bow, and I don’t know how right he was but I figured it was worth a shot anyways, and— I’m really sorry for bothering you, your majesty…”

The guarded look melted away altogether. “I’m exactly the person to come for about that – come in.”

Gavin nodded stiffly, obliging, and followed her back into the chamber. The main room was something of a large commons room, with two doors along the back wall and one along the right. The majority of the seating arrangements were focused around the fireplace in the dead center of the back wall, everything else flowing with that, but Gavin couldn’t help but notice the table scattered with all sorts of hardware and tools in the far back-left corner. When the door was shut and Gavin had had his fill of the room, the Queen beckoned for the split bow.

“Let me see.”

He handed it over eagerly – not _too_ eagerly, he hoped, because that might be rude – and she was all too happy to take a look at it, walking for the table with the tools that had piqued Gavin’s interest. She dropped into a chair before she could reach it, however, examining it closely by candlelight.

“It’s a clean split,” she remarked. “Whatever force snapped it was enough to break away all of it; the fibers of the wood didn’t split or pull.”

Briefly, Gavin considered mention that was probably because he fell on it from fifteen feet up. But he decided against it – seemed like a bad idea in the end.

“This is phenomenal craftsmanship.” Queen Ramsey held the bow up to the light to get a better idea of it – the intricate carvings in the blackened wood stuck out far better against the glow of the flame, and her awe was fairly evident. “Who made this?”

“My friend,” he replied. “It’s, um—it’s End craftsmanship, if that means anything.”

“That means a lot. I haven’t seen End woodwork in years – they do some of the very best. Surprising, for people who come from somewhere there are no trees.” Though, to be fair, they’d inhabited the north long before humans did – in a place rich with spruce trees, it was no surprise that their woodworking had developed so finely.

There was silence for a while longer before at last the Queen spoke up again as she stood, moving for the littered table in the back at last. “I can fix this, no problem. You’re lucky it broke the way it did, it shouldn’t be hardly any different from before when you get it back.”

Gavin brightened, and, rude or not, there was no containing his obvious excitement. “Really? _Thank you_ , Queen Ramsey – er, _bollocks_ , I’m sorry, your majesty—”

“Queen Griffon is fine, dear,” she insisted, effectively cutting him off. “Griffon, even, when it’s just Geoff or Millie around. If you’re comfortable with it.”

Gavin nodded curtly – he’d keep that in mind. Standing for a moment longer, unsure of what to do, Gavin shifted uncomfortable, and Griffon spoke up again.

“Do you like books?”

“Um—yeah, a lot.”

“You can head to the study if you like. It’s the room just below this – should be unlocked.” She knew full well exactly what kind of company would be keeping themselves in the library – but then again, if she said something, it might scare the archer off from the prospect of visiting.

“Really?” Again, his excitement was nearly palpable. He’d never been in a book store before, let alone a whole royal library.

“Yeah – won’t be done with this till tomorrow afternoon, very likely, but at least you’ll be able to shoot with it for the week before the Tourney. It’s good to practice with what you’ll be using. But you might as well go occupy yourself  for a bit.”

“Thank you.” Honestly, he couldn’t convey his gratitude, but it might be a little out of place to gush to the Queen, of all people. So he nodded politely before taking his leave for the study.

**

"Oh."

The library, Gavin quickly discovered, though much to his surprise and dismay in equal measure, was indeed very occuppied.

"Can I help you?" It was Lord Haywood that spoke up, sat in the middle of Jack and King Ramsey, and he seemed none too pleased to see the archer. Not that it surprised Gavin, really.

"Uh - Sorry, I just-" He swallowed hard. "Gri- Queen Ramsey said I could come down here...? I didn't think it was occupied, I'll just pop off, sorry."

"No, wait." Holding out one hand in a gesture for Gavin to pause, the king moved a few books from the seat beside him to empty it up. "You can stay. I wanted to talk to you anyways."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Here, come sit."

Hesitantly, Gavin complied, taking tentative steps towards the chair before throwing all caution to the wind and elongating his step to a proper gait till he could sit in the spot that had been made available to him. "Thank you."

"Nah, don’t mention it. Here, you can tell them about Israphel.”

“More fairy tales, Geoff?” Jack remarked, lighthearted in jest. “You’re too invested in mythology.”

“It’s not mythology,” the king rebuked. “It’s history this time. Gavin, go on, you tell them.”

“Me? I’m not—” He swallowed. He was awful with vernacular craft. “I’m not good with words.”

“Try. I want to hear what you know.”

Nodding stiffly, Gavin drew in a deep breath to steel himself, and finally, began.

“So centuries back – everyone knows about the war with Ipsevere, yeah? When they tried to invade and the First King, King Burnie, he’d been studying magic for years on end and he laid waste to the nation and now all that’s left is volcanic wasteland and dead forests and ruins of cities and villages, because all the people were turned to mindless zombies and brittle skeletons and the land was pretty much decimated. That whole story, yeah? Well, the prince of the land had been the one to call war on Rerbum in the first place and he knew his way around magic too, I guess. Not quite as good, though, he was more into the whole art of alchemy. And in his desperation to survive he produced potions to fight death and solvents to stop the rotting of his flesh and he survived for an awful long while as a human. Even fled to the neighboring nation and took up some work on a farm till he could gain his strength back and seek revenge on Rerbum.

“But between the King’s magics and his own attempts to thwart it, it eventually just drove him into a state of madness. He was desperate to get revenge on _anybody_ at this point, and he’d given up trying to keep up appearances till the skin had turned ashen and rotted, and his hollow eyes sunk in and turned the brightest glowing red, and he lashed out, laying waste to the town. And he began producing potions of immortality and strength and began building his own power and studying the craft of darker magics, and between the curse and his counter-attack he’d begun to develop all sorts of nasty powers as side effects. And eventually he disappeared for a bit, somewhere into the desert – some say he went to the nether and gathered this big army and grew his power there, I guess, but I don’t know – and reappeared a few decades later to lay waste to Kaptoras.”

At this point, each of the three were enthralled – even Ryan had softened, regarding Gavin with less guarded aggression and more subtle curiosity. Gavin took that as a good sign – he continued.

“So at this point the nation’s obviously hit a low point – there’s all sorts of monsters and beasts ravaging the cities for the first time in centuries and the capital’s been invaded by Israphel himself and the king, who’d taken the throne because he’d saved the people when the king before him died and they were unprotected from the monsters, even he can’t stop them and he and his family are slain. And it’s really a big nasty sort of thing. But some of his knights had gotten out and staved off the beasts long enough to run and warn the surrounding towns who hadn’t yet been attacked, and one of those was the captain of his guard, this brave man named Karpath. And he had always loved his nation and served it with pride and he can’t let it fall to waste. So he gathered up all his knights that had escaped, including his father, and gathered knights from other towns – Mistral City, namely, the second biggest city in the whole nation, and he created the Crimson Cross, this big order of knights and templars. And they constructed a wall to keep Israphel’s evil that had seeped into the desert from coming into the nation, and they banded together to wage the Sand War against him. And eventually he fell, and they thought they’d killed him, but he’d disappeared to a town on the edge of the nation to lay dormant beneath their chapel. And his evil seeped into that, and seeped into the priests and the bishops that resided there, and when he was finally ready to rise again some hundred years later, he had made his domain beneath the chapel itself.

“Well life went on and all that. And Karpath had a son who, oddly enough, had decided to settle down in the same town Israphel had gone dormant in. And he didn’t know it, till after Israphel had escaped and run across some adventurers who chased him back to the town after he’d attacked them. And the pair of them – Honeydew and Xephos, absolute idols back east – they banded with Karpath’s son who took on the title of knight and followed them to stop the prince. And Israphel drags them through hell and back trying to stop him, but they eventually gather all the pieces of Karpath’s old map that they need to travel to the center of the desert and lock Israphel away for good. The last bit, it, uh—it was only in the last few decades. So the history hasn’t quite made it over here much yet; I’m hoping a book with it all will find its way into Rerbum because I’d really like to know what actually happened, details and all that. But the point is, those two heroes, they became the kings of Kaptoras. And damn good ones, too, from what I heard. I mean, it’s been a few decades, and last I heard they’ve since passed away – a real tragedy to lose heroes like that, honestly – but it’s nice to see the story get a happy ending.”

After a moment of silence, Lord Haywood blew out a deep breath. “And that’s all genuine history? I knew there’d been a war that way some hundred or so years ago but I’d never heard anything like that.”

“Well, I’ve travelled a lot. And I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve travelled. Ferinor is a really popular place to travel because of how friendly it is to nomads and adventurers and the like, and a lot of people loop through there and back up into Kaptoras to avoid going through Ipsevere. Good plan, I think,” Gavin explained. “I’ve never been, though. I _want_ to; I’d do _anything_ to go see the wall.”

“Maybe you could band some of your old friends together after the Tourney,” Jack offered. “If they’ve already been I’m sure it would be more than easy enough for them to get through, yeah?”

 “Maybe. I’ve already got one trip planned for after the whole lot, but… maybe.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.”

Gavin hummed softly in reply, before directing his attention towards the king. “King Ramsey, do you have any stories?”

“A lot,” Geoff replied. “Um… here. Do you know about the religion and all that from before the First King’s reign?”

“Hold on.” Jack stood. “I have to run a trip early tomorrow morning and I can’t sit through a string of twenty-minute stories like this. I mean, great hearing them, but I have to go.”

“Oh, come on, it won’t take _that_ long – sit back down.”

“Any other night I would.” As he spoke, he made for the door, and before closing it behind him, gave a quick ‘goodnight’ to the inhabitants of the room and let the wood fall back into place.

“I… ought to go too. One last story, though,” Ryan remarked, leaning back into his chair.

“Perfect – where was I, the old religion?”

“Yeah – load of pagan stuff, wasn’t it?” Gavin hadn’t heard much of it – many nomads still believed in it, and supposedly traditions from it still reigned strong in the north (though it varied from clan to clan, with the least amount of prominence in the larger clans that had more contact with the clans of the rest of the nation,) but on a whole Gavin actually had no idea what the religion itself encompassed.

“Sort of – totemism, mostly.” The king leaned back in his chair, one ankle crossed over his knee and a pint on the table beside him that he soon snatched up and took a long drink from. “Clans hadn’t formed yet then but there were towns, and sometimes really large towns that equated to their version of a city, and everyone was self-governed, mostly. An Ardem headed each town – like a priest, I guess? – and they ran the whole show. In earlier days they assigned each person an individual animal they were intended to be bound to in spirit and a lot of towns didn’t allow marriage to any two individuals who didn’t share a totem. And that got to be a real pain in the ass, and the restriction was lifted eventually, and the Ardems all wound up on a large council to tie the nation together, and the cities got bigger and bigger till the council decided to elect a king from one of the major cities. The only one in what became the capital to have a phoenix for a totem. Which was a big deal back then, I suppose, because they worshipped the Earth and the Sun as deities, with the bear as the Earth’s totem and the phoenix as the Sun’s. I think mostly because no one had touched the sun and no one had seen a Phoenix. But the point was, that’s why he became the king. And he was pretty much revered as a god for that reason – that and the magic he’d studied extensively – but after the cities got too large for one Ardem to do the job of assigning everyone’s totem, especially with all the new groups of people that had started settling down, the whole totem reasoning was abandoned altogether when those were. And then the clans that had started to form slowly became the main unit of power and it all eventually settled into the system we have now.”

“So the religions were really more important to shaping the nation than anything else,” Gavin observed, and Geoff nodded.

“I’ve got a whole book on the theology of it all and how the government system we have stemmed pretty much entirely from religion – even the clan system, though these days it’s mostly just a system of greed and power. It’s nice to be pulling some of the power from the people who think more money means better leadership, because if anything, those greedy for money are the last people you want in power.”

Ryan looked uneasy at that last remark – the guarded aggression had returned, though this time, it wasn’t directed towards Gavin.

“Anyways, if you want to borrow the book while you’re here, I can find it for you. It’s definitely worth reading.”

“I have to go,” Ryan said suddenly, standing quickly. The Lord was visibly ill at ease, and Gavin wondered if it had anything to do with Geoff’s comment about money – the Haywood clan was, after all, the absolute richest out of the five main clans. And because of it, it was very likely they were constantly vying for power. It only made sense that the comment would have upset him in some way.

“You sure? It can’t be that late…”

“It is. I should go.” Grabbing his overcoat from the back of the chair, Ryan quickly made for the door, and Geoff sighed.

“He’s too touchy about shit like that,” the king remarked. “He needs to realize it’s not something you can push for – you’re better being put into the position by someone else. Anyone capable of getting themselves made king should by no means be allowed to do the job.”

“But didn’t you petition for the throne?”

“Nah.” Geoff shook his head. “I was chosen by the council when the economic crash got too bad to keep on with the old self-governing style. Didn’t ask for it, but I’m not about to abdicate the throne, either. People who ask to be king very rarely have the know-how to do it. They’re usually selfish, in it for the power or the money or some other reason that isn’t to keep after their own people. Basically, humans are usually fucking scumbags.”

Gavin was quiet for a good while longer – this was more than true, honestly, and he was _so_ thankful to have a king like Geoff who was in it for the love of the people. After a moment, Geoff spoke up.

“What would you do if you were king?”

That took Gavin by surprise – he’d never thought about it before, but his answer was pretty obvious to him.

“I’d… fix everything. I’d change the laws that discriminate all the nomads and the clanless and the Endermen, and I’d push for equality more than anything else. And I know it’s just wishful thinking – there’s no way to create a perfect society and it’s likely too ambitious but there’s nothing I’d like more in this nation.”

When Geoff didn’t reply, he was certain he’d said something wrong – maybe he was right, maybe it was so ambitious Geoff just saw him as a child too caught up in his own daydreams to understand how the world worked. But he knew plenty fine how it functioned. That was exactly why he was so desperate for change.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the king replied eventually, voice significantly softer than before. Gavin stiffened, processing the reply, before brightening up straight away – he didn’t dare speak, lest he embarrass herself, but the prospect that the king might _actually_ take what he needed into consideration made him feel like, for once, he wasn’t actually garbage for his clan status.

“So.” With a changed tone, lighter more like what Gavin had been used to the times they had spoken, Geoff spoke up again. “Got any more good stories, archer?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you couldn't tell the whole story gavin told was pretty much israphel's history from soi (the yogscast series) but because it's not over and we don't know how it ends i skimped up on the details for the duration of the actual series part (also i'm not 100% caught up on soi s o.)
> 
> also this is a fairly new addition to the notes but if you post anything on tumblr about my au just tag it as #iwtig  
> i've claimed it as the tag for this au even if the official acronym should be 'htdw' but that is not a clean tag like iwtig so just. use that tag on the off chance that you're posting anything (especially fanart and stuff bc i'll love you forever) bc i'll definitely see it


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I like you, Gavin – I don’t know why your clan situation is the way it is or what you’ve been through or whatever the fuck, but you’re one of the last people I want to see get himself fucked over because of a bunch of age-old discriminatory laws. And I’m not always gonna be there to save your ass once you start slipping up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay yeah this chapter took about forty years to get out but have u ever had a final before

When Gavin eased into consciousness, the sun had barely crested the horizon, and he had to say, he was pretty impressed with how good he was getting at rousing early with all the late nights he’d been spending up. There was only a short weekend left before the Tourney – he’d adapted fairly well to life in the capital, enjoying it a good deal, but that was over within a matter of days. And with his bow fixed and his shoulder regaining its range of motion, he really was quite certain there was no beating him, but he was still skating on thin ice for the remainder of the time till the Tourney – and the competition itself especially.

For as long as he posed a threat to Ryan’s longstanding glory, Ryan posed a threat to him: if he did _anything_ to jeopardize the Haywood clan’s victory this year, Ryan may very well exercise his looming advantage and utilize what was essentially the perfect blackmail material.

Though, as of late, Gavin had begun to wonder how willing Ryan would be to get rid of him so quickly – he’d begun to warm up to the archer, that initial bitterness over Gavin’s failed attempts at robbery and heist beginning to, at least visibly, fade. And there was, of course, no telling how he’d behave if Gavin continued on the road towards victory like he had been, but at the very least it had begun to ease his nerves. Ryan, after all, appeared to be the kind who treated those he was particularly fond of very well. And he’d begun to warm up to Gavin; the archer had been kind and respectful and for the most part stayed out of his way, and it seemed the majority of the fondness arose when Gavin was willing to share stories of mythos and history with him. He seemed to enjoy those quite a good deal, as a matter of fact, and it made Gavin’s heart swell with pride to know what interested the Lord.

He, of course, had very little qualms with Ryan himself – he mulled over it as he dragged himself from bed and began peeling off his night clothes to dress for the day. He’d been invited into town by Ray and Mogar, both of whom he’d gotten to be on particularly good terms with and both of whom seemed to like him well enough. As far as Ryan went, however, aside from the injury induced by his own folly, the Lord had done nothing to spark distaste in Gavin. In fact, he liked the stories he told and the way he carried himself and how he regarded his friends. For the most part, Ryan was exactly the kind of person Gavin would want to be on the good side of, and if he carried on the way he was – and if Ryan excused being surpassed by the Narvaez clan in the archery portion of this year’s Tourney – then that was very likely exactly where he’d land himself.

Ray was waiting towards the end of the red corridor for Gavin; Mogar, he expected, was either still getting ready or waiting on the both of them, though really there was no way to be sure. Though his clothing was little more than what he’d been provided upon his arrival, complete with the bracers that he’d gotten particularly fond of wearing in that outfit, he still looked like any respectable clansmen – maybe even an upper-class clansmen, if he dared say so himself – and Ray brightened immediately from his position slumped against the wall when he saw Gavin approaching.

“Took you long enough,” he teased, all in jest. “Seriously, how long it takes you to get ready is going to become some sort of shitty running joke.”

Gavin squawked indignantly. “I’m not _that_ bad!”

“I’ve been waiting for a half hour.”

That had Gavin piping down – he’d only been awake for maybe ten minutes. “Ahh. Well. Maybe that’s a little bad.”

“Yeah it is. Come on – Mogar’s waiting for us already down in the square, let’s not dick around any longer.”

Gavin nodded stiffly – he hadn’t meant to keep both of them waiting, and now he just felt bad, but Ray didn’t seem to be bothered by it in the slightest, and while Mogar might spit around a few lightly meant jokes and insults, he very highly doubted he’d be genuinely upset over it. As Ray began to walk, Gavin began to follow, beginning to chatter on about nothing at all.

“So I got my bow back a few days ago,” he remarked, seemingly more than pleased with the fact. “It’s in such good shape – Queen Griffon’s really good at that kind of thing, isn’t she? You can’t even tell it was broken, it’s really tippy top condition.”

“She is, yeah, she’s definitely one of the best in the craft,” Ray replied, but then quickly changed the subject. “Why do you always talk like that?”

“Like what?” The question genuinely took Gavin by surprise.

“Like _spaff_ and _munger_ and _tippity toppers._ ”

“Oh.” Gavin shrugged, sheepish. “I don’t know. I always have – it’s always been easier to say whatever comes to mind than think of a good proper swear word and I’ve kind of just had it all drilled into my head.”

“It’s just that I’ve never heard anyone spout shit like that, mostly.”

“I didn’t think it was a bad thing…”

“It’s not,” Ray insisted, attempting to put the other’s nerves at rest. “It’s just different. I guess maybe it’s being with high class pricks all the time. Only us Lords really swear around each other because we know we can get away with it and we’ve been friends for years. I mean, Mogar and I obviously haven’t been friends with the others for quite as long, because we’re pretty much babies compared to them, but we’re still all really comfortable with each other. We’re like one constant stream of profanity.”

Gavin hummed in agreement, nodding. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. You lot really let it slip out around others, don’t you?”

Ray couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I mean, to be fair, it’s not like anyone can tell us _not_ to.”

“Must be nice having that much power,” Gavin remarked.

“It’s kind of a bitch, though – you make one small mistake and you’ve got a whole nation climbing down your throat. At the very least, you’ve got a fifth of it. And you’ve always have to be aware of how you’re interacting with other clans,” he explained. “I mean, look at the Jones and Haywood clans – Michael and Ryan used to actually be really good friends, but ever since Michael tried to open up trade routes—“

“Sorry, _Michael_?”

“Wait, Michael?” For a moment Ray looked confused – caught between wondering where Gavin got that name and wondering why he hadn’t heard it out of the archer before. But when realization hit him, he swore loudly. “Oh, _fuck_. Pretend I didn’t say that. _Mogar_. I said Mogar, okay? Don’t _ever_ use that name around him unless he tells it to you. Don’t use it at all, preferably, but _don’t_ fucking let him know you know it.”

“Is that his real name, then?” Gavin, obviously, was clueless – his attempts at finding out the northern Lord’s name earlier had all been in vain, but it seemed that was for a good reason, too.

“It is, yeah. But I mean, you know how the northerners are like."

To be honest, Gavin didn’t, but considering his whole cover was that he’d spent enough time in the north in the north to be perfectly familiar with all of this, he couldn’t say anything. Thankfully, Ray continued on.

“It’s a respect thing, _I_ think; I mean, look at how much pride they take from their warrior names. They’ll only let you call them by their real name if they trust you have enough respect for them. That’s just how I’ve seen it, anyways.”

“Yeah, that – uh, that sounds about right, I think.” Smile and nod, Gavin, smile and nod.

**

“Took you fucks long enough.”

Mogar had been waiting for them just outside the castle gates – no surprise to either of the boys – and his impatience was very nearly palpable when Ray and Gavin finally joined him.

“Shut up, we didn’t take that long. You’re the weird early bird, waking up at the ass-crack of dawn for no good reason.”

Banter like this, Gavin had quickly gathered, was increasingly common between the two Lords. They’d bicker occasionally and spit out half-hearted insults, but it was all completely in jest and for the most part, they seemed closer than any of the other Lords for it. Ryan and Jack appeared to have some sort of a decent friendship going on, and as Ray had been discussing earlier, Ryan and Michael had actually been fairly close friends until the Lord of the north opened up some trade routes that drew heavily from the Haywood family’s income and all hell broke loose for it. Jack and Geoff also appeared to be close – which was almost something of a surprise, because Gavin never really imagined that anyone would be allowed to be close friends with the king, which was something awful, because Gavin figured it would have to be a terribly miserable life without any friends. But that didn’t appear to be the case, which was good, at least. But out of all of them, none seemed to be friends quite as close as Mogar and Ray.

“Okay, but to be fair, with how short the day is up north, you can’t really afford to be getting up any later. You little shits in the south with your perfectly flat horizons have it easy.”

Ray laughed. “Mountains are a pain in the ass sometimes, aren’t they? I’m pretty damn glad I’ve never been. How do you even manage?”

“We’re a bunch of nature-hardened warriors, Ray – trust me, we’ve adapted.”

“How did you manage up north, Gavin?”

The question took the archer by surprise, but suddenly Ray was looking at him pretty expectantly, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“Oh. Well – it’s pretty cold but I didn’t… have a lot of responsibilities up there, I guess. So I didn’t need to get up very early.”

“Yeah, but the terrain is a real bitch to navigate, and the villages up there are always working everyone to the bone,” Ray continued. “Didn’t you always wind up with a load of work to do?”

Quite suddenly – and thank god for it, too – Mogar spoke up. “Shit – hold on, I want to go check up with this leathercraft shop, I need a new pair of gloves and I got my last ones from here.” Hurrying for the shop in question right at the edge of where the storefronts surrounding the royal castle began, he left them no choice but to follow, effectively cutting off their conversation.

The store positively reeked of leather – only to be expected, considering objects made from the material was all they carried in stock, all of it finely produced and sporting a high quality with a hefty price tag to match. As Mogar inquired about a pair of gloves up at the front of the counter, it took Ray only a quick glance around the store to decide he wasn’t interested.

“Listen, there’s a library down the road, you guys can find me there, alright? I’m not much of a leather fan.” That much was fairly obvious – the only leather the Lord had ever sported around Gavin had been a belt, and it didn’t look like it was going to need replacing any time soon. No wonder he didn’t want to linger.

“Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll just let Mogar know, yeah?” Gavin nodded, and Ray clapped him on the good shoulder before disappearing out of the store. A minute or two later, Mogar returned with a new pair of gloves in hand to find Gavin eyeing a new pair of bracers on one of the shelves.

“Where’s Ray?”

“Oh, he, uh—disappeared down to the library or something of the sort. Told me that’s where we could probably find him.”

Mogar snorted. “Doesn’t surprise me.” He spent a moment inspecting the pair of bracers Gavin had his eye on, but once he spoke up, took Gavin by surprise. “You’ve got to be more careful about what you say.”

“Pardon?”

“Look, Ryan—” He blew out a deep breath. “Ryan told me about your clan status and all that. And I don’t know if you’ve actually been to the north, but it sure as hell wasn’t to live there for a while like you told Ray based on the way you’ve been talking, and if you keep bullshitting like this you’re gonna get yourself caught and into a load of trouble, okay? I like you, Gavin – I don’t know why your clan situation is the way it is or what you’ve been through or whatever the fuck, but you’re one of the last people I want to see get himself fucked over because of a bunch of age-old discriminatory laws. And I’m not always gonna be there to save your ass once you start slipping up. So just – be more careful, alright?”

Gavin swallowed hard – so Ryan _had_ told him. While they might not have been as close of friends as before, it seemed they still swapped information of importance like that from time to time, and thankfully, Mogar hadn’t lashed out or reacted with disdain towards the archer. It made sense, mostly; the people of the north didn’t adhere to the idea that petty social statuses like clanships dictated your worth as a human being. Mogar had taken a liking to Gavin, and that was all that mattered to him.

“Okay,” he replied finally, quiet and abashed – almost ashamed, even. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t. Don’t apologize – it’s not your fault the way the world works. You just can’t be a dumbass, about it, you know? It’s risky enough doing this shit. Why are you in the Tourney if you know you’re not allowed to be, anyways?”

“Because Ray wanted me to be.” It was an answer as simple as that, really, but Gavin still felt horridly ashamed to admit it. It was stupid when you thought about it – he never had to say yes, but he just felt obligated to all the same. “He’d been so hospitable to me after I’d bollocksed it all up and he needed an extra archer and I couldn’t just say no – I mean, especially not since he could have thrown me out. My arm’s only just gotten good enough for me to be on my own. I just… god, I’ve really mullered it all.”

“Okay, a, learn to speak English, Gav – _bollocksed_ and _mullered_ are not words.” It was in vain, though – with how Gavin talked on a regular basis, there was no changing it with just a half-hearted lashing of the tongue. “And b, that’s… actually super fucking brave of you. Stupid, I mean – it’s stupid as all get out to risk that – but brave. And really loyal. And this is _exactly_ why the rules are a load of bullshit – the most corrupt people I’ve ever met have been upper class clansmen and the best have been at the lowest rungs. God damn, I’m sorry.”

Gavin shrugged. “I’m used to it. Don’t deal with people much anyways.”

“Did you ever spend any time around Endermen?” Mogar asked. “It’s the only explanation I can come up with for the damn accent. I mean, the whole _‘I spent a lot of time up by the stronghold’_ thing was really weak, you have to admit.”

“I know,” Gavin replied, groaning. “But um—yeah. My best friend is one. We grew up together.”

“I never got to spend a ton of time around the Endermen to be honest,” Mogar conceded. “I know we’ve got a whole stronghold up there, but it just… wasn’t ever a thing that happened. They really don’t tend to spend a ton of time around people.”

Not that Gavin could blame them – only recently did humans stop treating them like absolute shit. He frowned, casting his gaze back to the bracers for the sake of having something to look at.

“Did you want those?” It was a sudden question, mostly intended to break the silence, and it definitely caught Gavin off guard.

“What?” He swallowed, looking back at the Lord. “I mean – yeah, I did, but can you imagine the bloomin’ price tag on the things? I probably couldn’t even steal enough to afford a pair.”

Mogar snorted, rolling his eyes. “You lack of morals is fucking _astounding_ ,” he remark, but sobered quickly. “I’ll just buy them for you in that case, though.”

“Woah, hold on, you can’t—” Gavin squawked. “You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I don’t, but it’s not like money’s an object when you’re practically swimming in the shit – clans have their perks, crazily enough. Seriously, try them on. If you like them, I’ll buy them.”

“That’s too much, I can’t accept that…”

“I’ll make you if I have to. Just try the damn things on, Gavin.”

Stiff with apprehension, he relented eventually, beginning to unlace his own bracers. Mogar was more than happy to hold them for him once Gavin had moved on to taking the other bracers down from their place strung up on the wall; smug all the while at his obvious victory, the northern Lord watched as the new bracers were laced up, stretching all the way from the archer’s hand to just below the bend of his elbow.

“Well?” Mogar asked as soon as the bracers were laced properly, giving Gavin an expectant look. The archer swallowed hard – he could lie, of course, but…

“They’re perfect,” he conceded quietly, finally letting that reluctance to do so slip away, and as he melted into the acceptance of how much he actually adored them, it showed plain on his face and Mogar grinned.

“Good. Here, give them back, we’ll go pay.”

“You’re actually a saint, you know that?” Words alone couldn’t quite convey how positively grateful he was for the other’s decision to pay for him – he was grateful he didn’t need a new bow or quiver to pine after, or he might just buy the Lord out of house and home.

Mogar snorted. “I like to think I’m pretty fucking short of it, but, you know. Thanks.”

**

By the time they got to the library, it was another ten minutes before they were able to find Ray; though not in itself a terribly impressive or large establishment, it was more than easy enough for him to find himself lost in it, all but buried in a pile of books that had yet to be put away with his nose buried in one of them in return.

“Sending you into a library is probably more dangerous than sending you into battle,” Mogar remarked, deliberately snide. Ray snorted, eyes still firmly locked on the text on the page.

“It’s not that I don’t like hanging out with you guys. But I just prefer to explore tiny worlds.”

“What’s it about?” Gavin dropped down to sit on the floor beside him immediately, trying to peer over his shoulder. He loved lore and mythology and fiction on a whole – storytelling was the only thing to do around campfires with the nomads that were putting you up, and while anecdotes about what you had done recently were usually reserved for fonder company like Dan or old travelling mates (though Dan usually got the more mundane brunt of things, considering he was the only one Gavin ever saw regularly enough to not have any wild new stories for,) fairy tales and ancient histories and old religious fables were always present, no matter the company. Many of Gavin’s fondest memories on the road were sharing whatever new stories he’d picked up with Dan, the Enderman often doing his best to return the favor on the rare occasions that he’d spent any significant amount of time with others.

“Just fairy tales, mostly. Come here, I’ll tell you one – there’s this witch, right?”

Mogar interjected, cutting him off sharply. “Listen, I’m not up for story time – I still need to go see the blacksmith, so I’ll slip out, alright?”

“Whatever, we’ll just stay here and have infinitely more fun without you,” the Lord replied, and his northern counterpart only rolled his eyes before disappearing back out of the aisles.

“ _Anyways_. The silver witch.” Once the other was gone, Ray only barreled on. “And she’s the most powerful witch in the whole kingdom but she got sick of everyone coming after her and begging for favors, so she disappears deep into this old forest and finds herself living at the edge of the most _perfect_ pool of water in existence.

“She basically just winds up spending her days scrying into this pool and watching the world from it so she can still enjoy it all without having to deal with greedy humans desperate for her talents. And she enjoys herself well enough, I guess, for probably decades and centuries on end or however long she’s there for, and she never moves, just watches the world through this pool.

“One day, she’s busy watching a prince from a far-away land when he looks into his own scrying orb and he sees her, and he’s the only one who’s known of her existence for centuries. And she’s fascinated with him for it, so she watches him and him alone for a long while, and sometimes they speak when he’s at his own scrying orb, and they grow to be awfully close. And inevitably, she falls in love with him, because she sees a side of him no one else ever does. But she never goes to him; and sure, he’s far away and all she’s met with is the cold water when she reaches out to him, but she never pries her eyes away and looks to something else, either. So she basically sits and pines after someone without ever making an effort to reach them. But she’s happy, she thinks, mostly just content with the _idea_ that someday she’ll get to him.

“But trouble starts to stir up in the prince’s kingdom, and she’s watched it slowly unfold, and she’s worried for him, obviously. But it all sort of comes crashing down when someone comes to overthrow him and she’s stuck sitting there, unable to tell him to run as he’s attacked from behind and brutally murdered right before her eyes. So he’s gone, and she couldn’t help for having not gone to him. He comes to her anyways, though, as a specter, now that he can go where he likes and be by her side. And even though all she touches if she reaches out is the cold water, he’s there with her, at the very least, and she’s not alone anymore.”

“That was _awful_ ,” Gavin said finally, once Ray was done. “I mean, it was a wonderful _story_ , but where’s the happy ending? That was just _heartwrenching_.”

The Lord laughed. “Most of these stories don’t have happy endings, actually. They’re older and wind up resulting in a lot of tragedy, which you don’t really see in fairy tales anymore, you know? I like it, though. There’s a sense of realism to it, I think.”

“But people have happy endings plenty.”

“Not always. Not a lot, anyways.”

Gavin would have liked to argue Ray was wrong – he liked to think everybody got a happy ending in some way or another, but considering his current trajectory, a happy ending would come with slim pickings when he was back to playing the part of poor clanless vagabond once the well-off clansman athlete jig was up. He usually thought that wouldn’t be such a bad thing; he still had Dan, after all, and he rather liked travelling quite a bit, and on a whole he wasn’t bad off. Especially not when his lack of morals cropped up and he wound up finding his way to a luxury or two. Really, being clanless wasn’t as bad as all the clanspeople made it out to be. Or tried to make it. But content was not the same as happy and especially for him there was no such thing as chasing a dream full of luxury and rights.

“Anyways. Are you gonna stick around? I can show you some more of my favorite books if you want.”

And Gavin, after all, was never about to turn down a good story. “ _Absolutely._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was gonna be waaaay longer and i was gonna go through all the tourney rubbish in this one but. it had been so long since i last updated that i just finished it up really quickly today to get it published idk
> 
> the story Ray tells is the story of Elsetetra (my namesake obvs)  
> it's a vocaloid song by Luka and it's one of my favorite vocaloid works and you should. go listen to it. yeah.
> 
> also in case anyone missed it from the last chapter  
> if you ever want to post or look for anything related to this fic on tumblr (anything at all be it fanart or promos or w/e) the official tag is #iwtig  
> i will be using that tag for original rubbish like art and headcanons and stuff so if you're genuinely interested in that that's the tag for you  
> but that way people can find my stuff and other's stuff and I can find other's stuff which is v important  
> and i mean. if anyone actually wants to write fanfic or draw fanart. i'd be eternally grateful. but i mean w/e


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regardless of the fact that all eyes were on him, it was a _good_ thing for once – not because he was some filthy vagabond passing through towns of people who looked down on him, not because he was walking talking tragedy, not even because he was a calamity on wheels. All eyes were on him because, for once, Gavin Free was a victor. And not all those eyes were terrible pleased with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger warnings for this chapter; apologies for taking two whole months to update, but unfortunately my muse has been elsewhere in the story all summer, so I've been working on later chapters rather than getting a new update in. on the bright side, this chapter is a major plot point and the initiation stage to the heroic cycle at last and i'm really excited to finally get it done and over with!!

Gavin woke with a start the second sunlight filtered into his room – it wasn’t a matter of bad dreams or outside influence, but rather, the nagging anticipation that almost hadn’t let him sleep the night before when he needed rest and repose the most. Today was the start of the Tourney.

He couldn’t tell for the life of him what time it was; the disorientation of sleep made that nearly impossible, and though it was clear to see it was still early morning by the way the light filtered in, pinning an hour was nearly impossible and he was frightened he’d miss the 11 O’Clock opening ceremonies. So he pried himself from his bed the second he was awake enough to do so and quickly began to peel his sleep clothes from his body.

**

“This is the earliest you’ve been up all week.”

That much surprised Gavin – he’d found Ray and Mogar in the dining hall, picking at a freshly served breakfast with a select few other athletes spattered along the lengthy table, and Ray was quick to comment on his usual punctuality once again.

“Is it?” He took a seat next to Mogar, the northern Lord sat across the table from the southern.

“It’s _maybe_ ten past eight,” Mogar replied, only looking up for a brief stint before focusing on his food. “So yeah, I’d say it’s the earliest you’ve been up all week.”

“Christ.” He hadn’t been aware he’d been sleeping in so much – clearly, however, Gavin waking at a decent hour was as much of a surprise to the others as it was to him.

“Here, do you want something to eat?”

“That would be great, yeah.” He’d been _about_ to turn it down – he was used to going without breakfast most days, after all – but then again, he needed to perform his best and lunch had been scratched off the schedule in favor of the competitions. He didn’t need to be collapsing from hunger pains halfway through his turn – taking time out of the morning for breakfast would be far more advantageous than to go without.

The second Gavin replied, Mogar was hailing over one of the kitchen hands, rattling something off to them and exchanging words in a foreign tongue before sending them off – Ray, unsurprisingly, hardly seemed to notice it, but it threw Gavin for a spin.

“What was that?”

“What, that conversation?” He took a quick swig of whatever was in his pint, which looked to be milk once he was wiping it from his mouth. “Most of the help in the kitchen here is from the Northern Isles. And I mean, they all speak English perfectly well, but it’s far easier to get on their good side if you speak to them in Karne. And it just so happens to be my first language.”

“It is?” Gavin never would have guessed that the northern Lord wasn’t a native English speaker, but then again, with how warmly he regarded a lowly clanless liar, he wouldn’t have pinned him as nobility, either.

“It’s the first language for most people up there. My parents were Karnes, actually – migrants straight from the Northern Isles. But then again, pretty much everyone is Karne. The original Natives were rather than the Raunes that settled most of Rerbum.”

Gavin was familiar with some of Rerbum’s ancient history – the Raunes had moved from the rest of the continent and settled Rerbum, small units of migrants forming towns and cities and, thousands of years later, a kingdom. The North he knew had been settled mostly by Karnes instead of Raunes; there’d been bloody wars in the past, so the history books told, but these days you wouldn’t be able to tell any Northerner apart from someone from the rest of Rerbum, save for their outrageously pale skin. But that came from living up in the mountains.

“You’re awfully keen on giving him your whole life story,” Ray remarked, wholly in jest, but it struck a bad chord with Mogar.

“It’s _history_ , you fuck face, don’t patronize me.”

Ray laughed, a sound deeply triumphant, and even Gavin couldn’t help crack a grin despite the northern Lord’s pointed scowl. But moments later the kitchen help was back with a plate covered in rich castle foods Gavin had grown all too accustomed to, and effectively put that conversation to an end.

**

Eleven came around significantly quicker than Gavin would have liked – there was little time to prepare, everyone rushing to get out to the coliseum in time, and with all the faffing about he did, Gavin very scarcely made it before the athlete’s quarters were closed off. Few people he recognized were in sight in the back rooms of the coliseum; many of the athletes had gone out to the seating area designated for participants who were keen on watching and very few of those with him he knew anyways. He hadn’t made an attempt to befriend many athletes, winding up closer to the lords more than anything, but there were a few choice individuals he’d exchanged words with and knew the names of and who seemed more like personal rivals than dull faceless antagonists.

Gavin spent the good majority of the competition watching from the seats – it was the Pattillo Clan who’s athletes took the victory in jousting that first hour and a half, effectively snatching the long-running victory from the Haywood Clan. Gavin had slipped off halfway through the jousting to try and find something resembling lunch, returning just in time to see one of Jack’s jousters throw Ryan’s from his steed with his lance, the armored bloke skidding across the dirt ground at least a dozen feet before he stopped. The victory was fairly clear.

The Jones clan’s triumph followed in combat for the next hour and a half; a dangerous sport, two athletes faced off in full armor and pre-regulated weapons till one surrendered or was knocked out of the ring. And despite its high death rate, in certain regions spots were highly coveted, only three athletes allowed for combat per clan – spots were especially pined after in the north and west. But, as Gavin had come to understand, no one had beat the North’s athletes out since the Tourney began, and no one was terribly beat up over it. Beating wilderness-hardened warriors wasn’t an easy task and most had resigned to their fates of failure.

As soon as the winner was announced in combat, the field cleared as volunteers and employees of the Tourney filed in to set up for the archery competition. In ten short minutes, the stage was Gavin’s.

He was nervous, to say the least – filing into the back room to hunt down something to drink, just for the sake of having to do, there was no stopping the wild beating against his ribcage or the tremor in his hands. There was every chance he’d bollocks it and make a fool of himself – which wouldn’t matter, considering he had no _real_ reputation to uphold and no clan to bring honor to, but the fright of embarrassment still weighed heavy on his chest. And on the other hand, there was every chance he’d blow the competition away, a dangerous game to play considering that so long as he was a threat to Ryan, Ryan was still a threat to him, no matter how they had warmed up the short two weeks past.

As he pushed past other athletes bantering about in the hallways and dressing rooms, or rushing to be sure everything was in place, he rounded a corner, very nearly colliding with Mogar.

“There you are.” Immediately, he brightened, but Gavin quickly adopted a bemused expression.

“You were looking for me?”

“Sort of. I was down here visiting some of my own athletes and I wanted to pay you a visit. You confident?”

“Kind of.” He’d seen the others in practice – Lord Haywood’s athletes were certainly going to give him a run for his money, and he couldn’t say he was terribly surprised. Ryan got only the best for his clan, and there were certainly enough funds to go around to do it with. But it was also painfully clear that no one there had the experience he had, or more importantly, the skill; as someone who’d been pulling back the bowstring since he was first able to hold one, it was tough to rival his talent. It would be awfully surprising to him to lose in all of this – however, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to win with Ryan’s leverage against him.

“ _’Kind of’_? Don’t give me that, asshole. I’ve _seen_ you, nobody else has anything on you. And it’s about time somebody other than Haywood took archery. I’m sick of him winning the tourney each year.”

“To be fair, his athletes _are_ really quite skilled.”

“Because Ryan’s a rich prick who thrives off his father’s success and pays the best athletes in the whole damn country to work for him. So it’s not like anyone has a chance; most of the athletes out there aren’t even Westerners, just the best from the whole nation. Taking away opportunity from everyone else. What an asshole, seriously.” Mogar’s irritation was very nearly palpable; over his stay, Gavin had overheard Lords and athletes alike mentioning to each other how close Mogar and Ryan had been in past years, but the story he’d come to understand was that the tensions over trade between the two clans had done nothing good for the personal relations of the Lords. Hell, Ryan was convinced that Gavin was hitman hired by Mogar himself during their first encounter; you didn’t jump to conclusions like that about people you got on well with. The warrior and the aristocrat, though once close as brothers, had unfortunately come into bad blood, as it seemed.

“ _The point being,_ ” the Lord continued, snapping back on point from his digress, “You’re gonna kick their ass. And I’m really excited, okay? You deserve it. You take that shit, you’ve earned something good for once.”

Gavin would be lying if he said it didn’t feel as though his heart swelled just a little; it meant a lot, but it probably wouldn’t be within his best interest to get mushy with the other. “You’re really too good to me.”

“Because you’re not a cocky piece of shit like most of the athletes here. And because you’re good at what you do, and you deserve some kind of a reward after years of bullshit and segregation, and because you’re good to _me_ , okay? You treat us like we’re human and that’s really hard to come by in a position of power. We’re not fucking gods to be revered, no one should worship the ground we walk on. And I can’t tell you how good it is to finally have someone who gets that.”

There was a moment when Gavin struggled for words; if he were being perfectly honest, he’d have thought everyone would have chalked his behavior up to disrespect and lack of culture. And while it came as no surprise to him that Michael understood the sentiment in his actions, it still made his heart swell to hear. The Lords were no gods among men, nor beasts to be feared; there was no divinity in the palace walls, no stardust in their veins or galaxies in their eyes. They were flesh and blood, cold iron and steel, human beings in a mob. But where they lacked in transcendence, they made up for in worth. Human beings with value and impact who should be respected, but not worshipped. Loved, but not revered. It was a fine line to walk but living his whole life being taught that all living beings stood on the same ground and garnered the same worth and were valuable forces of life that needed to be treated with the worth they possessed, Gavin never found himself crossing it.

“Anyways. Good luck, asshole. Knock ‘em dead.” Clapping him on the shoulder, Mogar filled the silence the other had procured, looking him dead in the eye with a firm and fierce gaze, fire in his eyes. “I have faith in you.”

**

The stadium was brought to silence by the sound of cannonfire. The ending of each gap between the competitions was marked by a bang, seeking to silence the crowd’s banter and draw those who had disappeared in pursuit of food and paraphernalia back to their seats, as the athletes were filed out and the athletes were announced.

The announcer went through each competitor one by one, rattling off full name and who they were representing, but not all were met with the same response from the Lord as the others.

“…and the second representative of the Narvaez clan, Gavin Free!”

Ray’s expression dropped into a baffled one immediately; he hadn’t been told Gavin’s full name, had he?

Leaning over to speak to Geoff, the King’s daughter between them, he interrupted the silence among the Lords. “Hang on, I’ve never heard of them, are they a smaller clan?”

Michael leaned left and interrupted, not letting the king speak and answering for him instead. “Yeah, northern folk and shit. Real tiny. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of them, they stick to the north and shit, you know?.” He _had_ to save Gavin’s skin, after all. Beside him, Ryan’s gaze hardened, but he remained quiet; no need to cause a commotion _yet so far_ , after all.

Below in the field, Gavin was stood at his position, eying the stadium and the other athletes. The field was set up much the way the training field was; rows lined the field, some twenty yards long with an athlete on one end and a target on the other and all divided by a line of chalk in the dirt and a few wooden stakes hammered in haphazardly every ten feet. There were, all in all, eight athletes competing in archery that day: two for Narvaez, three for Haywood, two for Jones, and one for Pattillo. Ryan, of course, had advantage in both number and talent, having plucked the best competition from under the noses of the whole country, but the catch was, Ryan had picked primarily rich kids who simply had great tutors. Speaking with the other athletes over the course of his time in the capital, and watching them during training, Gavin quickly gathered that they were subpar in a competition with him. And Michael’s words prior, really, gave him the drive he needed to cast aside his inhibitions and take the whole competition by storm. Rich kids who’d been learning from masterful tutors for three or four years were no match for a clanless vagabond who’d been engaged in the sport for survival his whole life, after all. There was only so much that could be taught in such a short period of time. And Dan had always said Gavin had a sort of unrivaled talent, impressive for a human, and really, Gavin had been inclined to believe it. The competition was his and he’d grown very pleased with that.

Fifth in line, Gavin would be among the latter half to be shooting, and had plenty of time to study the stadium and those before him; raised up, the seats of the stadium began about six feet off the ground, with solid supports and a solid barrier ringing around the field. Ovular in shape, one end held the main entrance to the field from the athlete’s holds within and the other, up with the audience, was a large section cleared out for the nobility and a staircase leading straight down into the field, a large stage cleared out on that end for the announcer.

The sound of the first arrow piercing the air drew Gavin’s attention from the architecture of the arena; it was the Haywood clan’s first archer to start, a skilled young girl of short and muscular stature with her dark hair pulled back and expression fierce. She hit a nearly perfect bullseye, missing by perhaps only a few centimeters, and you could see her quietly curse herself. She was determined and tough competition, and Ryan clearly only hired the best. The next archer was even more off, and he swore significantly less quietly, quickly asked by one of the judges to watch his language and he was very clearly trying to restrain himself from obscene gestures. And the third’s was dead center, and Gavin’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t that good in training.

The fourth competitor was Gavin’s teammate, nowhere near as skilled as everyone else. He hit the white outside the bullseye and you could see his shoulders slump, but it clearly came as no surprise to him. And then, much to Gavin’s dismay, he had the floor.

Arrow already in his bowstring, he raised the bow and aimed, poising himself and drawing back slowly. His hands began to shake, he quickly realized, and immediately he talked himself down from it – deep breaths, five seconds inward and seven seconds outward, and mentally blocking out any noise or distraction from the stands around him. In the forest it was always significantly easier to bring up your focus, shutting out the sounds of nature and putting sole attention on your target, but even with the difficulty significantly higher in a stadium full of people with all eyes on you, he managed, steadying his hands and maintaining a firm grasp with a strong stance and a sturdy pull on the bow.

When he was certain, he released the string. Perfect bullseye.

Immediately he let out a long breath of relief, pleased with himself, and heart hammering a mile a minute. _Shit_.

The first of Jones’s archers had the floor next. Quite possibly as good as the first girl, but still, trained more in brute strength than fine archery, lacking in the necessary finesse to take the lead. And his partner was much the same, though her accuracy might have been just a little more off. And Pattillo’s, much to Gavin’s dismay, didn’t stand a chance, striking right in the white around the center. And then the cycle repeated.

Each archer did fairly well the second time around – the trick was getting your arrow in beside the other while still maintaining a decent shot as close to the bullseye as possible. Most others were doing just fine, few having hit terribly close to dead center, but therein lied the challenge for Gavin: his first arrow was as close to dead center as you could get and now he either missed or took a chance at aiming for the same place once more. And then he had the floor, and there was no more time to weight the decision.

Another arrow fixed into the bowstring, he took aim once more, steeling himself, blocking the stadium out, going through the motions. It took more focus than before, more deliberation and attent. He’d heard stories before of archers who’d been so spot on with their aim they’d shoot one arrow and proceed to split it in half, but he knew not only that it was just the general bullshit spread around the campfire and nothing to be taken terribly for granted, but at the same time something he assumed far beyond his present ability. In his eyes, anyways.

He’d waited far too long; the best he could hope for was to wedge the arrowhead beside the other, really, and when he was certain he had the same aim and poise as before, he released the bowstring once more.

Much to his surprise, the point of the arrow struck the knock of the one wedged into the target before it, and struck it hard, the fresh arrow wedging itself into the other – and while not strictly splitting it, getting itself lodged in it instead, driving the other back through the target significantly farther than its initial position. It was unprecedented for Gavin, at the very least – he’d never gotten anywhere near that level of accuracy but when you’re too nervous to move it’s fairly easy to retain your position, he supposed, and with enough focus mimicking old shots down to a ‘T’ wasn’t necessarily as hard as it was made out to be. Just don’t ask him to do it twice.

The audience was dead silent – far quieter than before, and it did nothing to ease his nerves, stomach twisting and chest seizing up, but he lowered his bow and kept his chin held high anyways. Regardless of the fact that all eyes were on him, it was a _good_ thing for once – not because he was some filthy vagabond passing through towns of people who looked down on him, not because he was walking talking tragedy, not even because he was a calamity on wheels. All eyes were on him because, for once, Gavin Free was a victor. And not all those eyes were terrible pleased with it.

**

No one was surprised when in the announcements for the victors, it was Haywood’s best archer who took second. Starting from the bottom up the announcer ran through them one by one, honorable mentions to third to second to first, and really, if the crowd was being honest with themselves as applause roared through the stadiums, _no one was surprised_ when the gangly little archer with the nose and the funny accent from the clan that no one had heard of was crowned the first place winner of the archery competition. Not after that stunt – nobody would be coming quite that close to pulling off a miracle like that for quite a long time, not even Gavin himself.

“And last, but certainly by _no means_ least, first place in archery goes to Gavin Free!”

The overwhelming feeling of accomplishment was more than worth forgoing previous inhibitions – yeah, he _did_ deserve this. Damn the social hierarchy; respect was earned and like hell he hadn’t earned a little something more than absolute shit.

But just because he’d damned the system didn’t mean everyone else was quite so keen on that idea. The limelight was only going to last so long when others had their own ideas.

“Excuse me, I have an objection to make.”

The awards process had never been interrupted quite like that in the history of the Tourney; no one had ever stopped the announcer from continuing on after the applause died down, and Lord Haywood just had to be the first to do it.

“While the games were ongoing, our lovely Lord Narvaez posed an excellent point. He’d never heard of the Free clan before – odd, isn’t it? Certainly doesn’t strike a good chord with _me_.”

Oh no. Gavin’s lungs seized up – this was it, this was Ryan’s carefully planned retribution, this was going to be his downfall. He was fucked – completely royally fucked for his stupid mistake, all because he wanted to repay a favor and got himself in too deep, and now he was going to be jailed or, more likely, killed for it. And he hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye to Dan.

“I feel like I ought to bring to the attention of everyone here that the Free clan simply doesn’t _exist_.” He spoke _loudly_ , assuring everyone in the stadium – but the Lords that Gavin had grown to trust, the nobility that had grown so fond of him, especially – could hear him as he descended the stairs to the field where the athletes stood, all eyes on Gavin as the western Lord approached him. There was fire in his belly and there would be retribution: Ryan Haywood was not a man of forgiveness. “So not only is this man a liar – a poor habit, Mr. Free – but a swindler as well. A clanless bastard who fooled all of us into letting him into a competition despite rules that stated _explicitly_ that his kind wasn’t _welcome_ in the Tourney.”

The crowd had done a remarkably good job of remaining silent – conflicted whispers filled the air, attendees of the games shocked and something akin to betrayed in equal measure, and the indescernable words from the audience were suffocating to Gavin. He made the mistake of looking to Ray; despite the distance the disappointment in his expression was unmistakable, feelings of betrayal plain on his face, and it crushed Gavin through and through. Mogar’s expression was significantly more reassuring, jaw set and eyes ablaze and the fury clear as day. Maybe he’d fight the punishments awaiting the archer.

“So this _traitor_ , then,” Ryan continued, clapping Gavin hard on the shoulder once he was within reach, the gesture firm and painful and unrelenting, “is to face the proper punishment to suit his crime. Lying like that, Gavin, deceiving Lords to get into the competition, well, that’s _treason_. Punishable by death. You’ll hang in the gallows tomorrow morning; it’s such a shame, isn’t it?” He grew melodramatic, feigning disappointment and regret in his voice – the erroneousness was clear as day and nobody was deceived and that was _exactly_ what he intended. “I guess my archers have no choice but to take the winning title again this year. Such _tragedy_ , such good potential wasted.”

Gavin was going to be sick.

“Sorry, hold on, Haywood, I think you’re mistaken.” Much to everyone’s surprise, it was the king that interjected, standing and hurrying down the stairs. None of the Lords knew what to do about it; Jack looked to Ray, each bearing expressions of equal confusion, and whispered something indiscernible to him. Mogar, left mostly alone, opened his mouth as if to ask the queen what the hell her husband was doing, but quickly snapped it shut. Nobody had any clue, really.

“ _Am I?_ Is the punishment for treason not death, your highness?” That was, of course, the punishment, and it was spoken with the utmost rhetoric and bitterness, Ryan clearly scornful about being interrupted.

“No, it’s not, but you’re wrong, sorry.” Moving between them to serve as a barrier, Geoff’s hand hit Gavin’s shoulder this time, but gentle and protective in contrast to Ryan’s. “He’s got a clan. You can go sit down.”

“Sorry, I—no I haven’t.” Gavin hated to agree but he couldn’t argue that he was, in fact, completely clanless, and if the king was under the impression then that had to be rectified immediately. Ryan was right, after all, in that the punishment for treason was horridly severe. And if he hoped to be shown any sympathy, the truth was his only scapegoat. “I’m sorry, but he’s right, I lied.”

“Nah.” Geoff hardly acknowledged it, flashing Ryan a quick shit-eating grin. “He’s a Ramsey, there’s no cause for all this.”

The front rows that could still hear the banter fell absolutely dead silent in shock – Gavin did, too, and the surprise in Griffon’s expression was plain as day as she stood, debating going down there and finding out just what the hell her husband thought he was doing.

“Geoffrey, what the fuck are you talking about?” It was barely above a hiss as Ryan leaned in, scorn and confusion and mostly fury plain on his face, and Geoff’s reply was gently and reassuring.

“I’ve adopted him into my clan. He’s not clanless. End of – I’ve got the power, after all. Go sit down, Haywood, you’re causing unnecessary trouble.”

Gavin was speechless – was this a joke? There was no way the bloody _king_ just adopted him into the most powerful clan in the kingdom. He _had_ to be lying.

With reluctance, Ryan backed away, looking like he was heading for his seat once more, but his expression still showed disbelief, eyes narrowed at the king and the archer.

“We’re not done here, Geoff, we’re talking about this later. You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“ _I’m_ not the one causing a fuss, Ryan. _Go sit down_.”

The Lord obeyed.

“The verdict stands that Gavin Free of the Ramsey Clan will retain his victor status and first place thusly goes to the Narvaez clan,” Geoff announced, voice bellowing about the stadium, and while there was a beat of hesitation from the audience, applause roared soon after, and Geoff’s hand grabbed Gavin’s without warning to raise it high in the air in pride of his victory. This was unbelievable.

When the applause had settled, the king released the archer’s hand at last, Gavin still dumbstruck and speechless as the announcer approached, shock still equally plain on his face.

“Good job, kiddo.” One last hearty clap on the shoulder, the gesture prideful, and Geoff was off towards his seat once more. Griffon met him the second he was up the stairs, not even granting him a second to head for his seat.

“Sorry, Gavin Free of the _Ramsey_ Clan? What the hell did you just do, Geoffrey?”

“I’m adopting him into the clan.” His hands went to the queen’s arms immediately, intended to be a comforting gesture, and it did work, Griffon relaxing into his touch. “He’s a good kid, I couldn’t just let him get killed. And everyone needs a family.”

There was a beat of hesitation to reply, but not for a second did reluctance flash across her expression. “…Okay. I won’t say no, Geoff, I couldn’t watch him get killed either, but we _have_ to talk about this later. Preferably with him.”

“Of course.” He ducked in, kissing the corner of her mouth, before escorting her back to her seat. “You’re the best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again sorry for getting this out so late and sorry for almost leaving this on a cliffhanger??? i mean they've gotta sort shit out now of course
> 
> reminder that the tag to track for shit based around this kings au on tumblr is #iwtig and you can also tag stuff u did for it there and i'll see it and gush over it i 100% guarantee


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